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Orange reduced Spam (sounds like a weird recipe!)


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Has anyone noticed a sudden reduction in the amount of spam mail arriving in their Orange mailbox? Over the past 3 or 4 years I have received up to 40 or 50 spam mails every day. (I have several email address which redirect to my Orange mailbox, so the potential for being spammed is quite high). I regularly add unwanted addresses or domain names to the Orange Spam filter, but suddenly, over the Christmas/New Year period the spam has dropped to zero. Now don't get me wrong, I'm not complaining, but I'd love to know what happened.

Sid SpamFree.

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[quote user="sid"]

Has anyone noticed a sudden reduction in the amount of spam mail arriving in their Orange mailbox? Over the past 3 or 4 years I have received up to 40 or 50 spam mails every day. (I have several email address which redirect to my Orange mailbox, so the potential for being spammed is quite high). I regularly add unwanted addresses or domain names to the Orange Spam filter, but suddenly, over the Christmas/New Year period the spam has dropped to zero. Now don't get me wrong, I'm not complaining, but I'd love to know what happened.

Sid SpamFree.

[/quote]

It always pays to check your Spam box now and again. I have had a couple put in there that were from real people. The other annoying thing is the spam filter in Outlook, some of the companies we use for bookings are classed as Spam by MS and we lost two bookings last year because of this.

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Its a server side filter..

if you use your orange address for any serious business I suggest you find another email address to use.

Email is filtered as it arrives at the server and deleted, the problem is there is no foolproof software which means mail you would like to receive could be deleted without you knowing, its also a problem in UK for "talk talk " subscribers.,,
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[quote user="tj"]Its a server side filter.. if you use your orange address for any serious business I suggest you find another email address to use. Email is filtered as it arrives at the server and deleted, the problem is there is no foolproof software which means mail you would like to receive could be deleted without you knowing, its also a problem in UK for "talk talk " subscribers.,,[/quote]

tj, are you sure about this? Has it changed recently? I find it hard to believe that any supplier would delete mail intended for a customer, whether or not it contained spam. What should happen is that the suspicious mail gets marked as "spam" and you can then decide whether to accept it or not. What used to happen until a few weeks ago was that all my spam would be filtered into the "indesirables" folder on the Orange server, not deleted. Then I would check every couple of days to make sure there was nothing genuine in there and then I'd delete it all in one go.

As far as I'm aware the stuff that was filtered was mostly controlled by me, by adding addresses to the "liste rouge", but there was also an element of "obvious" filtering taking place, "viagra" being a common one, but even these still came to me, but in my "indesirables".

Now I'm still receiving my normal mail but the spam has dropped to zero. I must admit that I would never know about emails that I haven't received! [blink]

Since all ISPs are trying to remove spam I can't believe that any one of them is better than another. Do you have a suggestion for email addresses? I currently have an Orange address which I don't bother to give to anyone, but I have several others addresses linked to personal domains which redirect to my Orange address so that I can collect all of my mail in one place. This has worked well for over 4 years.

EDIT: I can't find any reference to the "talk talk" problem where emails are deleted. As far as I can see all spam filters simply mark the email and it's up to you what you do with it.

I'm rapidly coming to the conclusion that Mr CdL is correct and there has been a general reduction.

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[quote user="sid"]

[quote user="tj"]Its a server side filter.. if you use your orange address for any serious business I suggest you find another email address to use. Email is filtered as it arrives at the server and deleted, the problem is there is no foolproof software which means mail you would like to receive could be deleted without you knowing, its also a problem in UK for "talk talk " subscribers.,,[/quote]

tj, are you sure about this? Has it changed recently? I find it hard to believe that any supplier would delete mail intended for a customer, whether or not it contained spam. What should happen is that the suspicious mail gets marked as "spam" and you can then decide whether to accept it or not. What used to happen until a few weeks ago was that all my spam would be filtered into the "indesirables" folder on the Orange server, not deleted. Then I would check every couple of days to make sure there was nothing genuine in there and then I'd delete it all in one go.

As far as I'm aware the stuff that was filtered was mostly controlled by me, by adding addresses to the "liste rouge", but there was also an element of "obvious" filtering taking place, "viagra" being a common one, but even these still came to me, but in my "indesirables".

Now I'm still receiving my normal mail but the spam has dropped to zero. I must admit that I would never know about emails that I haven't received! [blink]

Since all ISPs are trying to remove spam I can't believe that any one of them is better than another. Do you have a suggestion for email addresses? I currently have an Orange address which I don't bother to give to anyone, but I have several others addresses linked to personal domains which redirect to my Orange address so that I can collect all of my mail in one place. This has worked well for over 4 years.

EDIT: I can't find any reference to the "talk talk" problem where emails are deleted. As far as I can see all spam filters simply mark the email and it's up to you what you do with it.

I'm rapidly coming to the conclusion that Mr CdL is correct and there has been a general reduction.

[/quote]

Fantastic. Something in writing at last!

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Sid - yes, exactly the same happened here, exactly around the same time. I both like it and don't like it, as I was not "loosing" any real mail when all the spam got to my inbox and I deleted it myself.

The sudden disappearance of Spam co-incided exactly with being  repeatedly in touch with Orange to try and sort out some computer problems, so we assumed they must have done something to our computer without our knowledge. Now I see it is obviously not the case!

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Thanks 5E, at least I'm not alone! I agree, it's a very odd, uncomfortable feeling. I don't feel in control.

I suppose we'll never find out, but I keep checking my spam folder and there's nothing there! (Actually I had ONE over the weekend!). This stuff usually appears overnight, but it's still empty this morning. Never mind, there's plenty of other things to worry about! [;-)]

Thanks for the BBC News link, Ame; I hadn't seen that previously. Incredible amounts of spam generated there! They should be blitzed!

Mr CdL, who could doubt you! [:D] 

EDIT: I can't get rid of the blue hyperlink text above!

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Hi

the link below confirms the immediate deletion of detected potential spam email, this is the reason your spam folder is empty.

http://www.ispreview.co.uk/story/2010/10/11/new-email-spam-deletion-measures-anger-uk-talktalk-isp-customers.html

simplest solution, is to host your own email address.

I have been using MYDOMAIN.COM for over 10 years and can recommend them.

There you can choose your domain name, set up hosting package, setup your email address and forwarding etc, for around 60 euros a year, if you prefer someone to set it in the first instance and give some instruction as how to manage it , about 100 euros for the first year, if you prefer that option give me call..
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Yes tj but we are talking about Orange in France and your link is to Talk Talk in the UK. The default option with Orange France is to turn anti Spam on and then to place spam in a separate folder when detected. YOU, that the account holder has the right to change the setting so that the spam mails are deleted on arrival. Personally speaking I have all anti-spam options turn off and use MailWasher Pro which works very well for me as I have something like 11 different email accounts to do with personal and business.

One quick question, how much does using MyDomain cost? It implies around $5.95 a month which is an extra cost on top of your ISP who normally gives you 5 free email address's and I assume you are in France.

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OK tj, that link certainly shows that one ISP is deleting what it considers to be spam. Outrageous in my opinion; the customer should be allowed to examine his/her own mail. But that report goes back to Sept/Oct and I have indication that anything similar is happening on Orange France.

I think I can probably set up some test messages to try it out.

Thanks for the suggestion about hosting. I already do this with 1&1 anyway. I had several business domains (pre-retirement) which I've kept, and I have a couple of French (.fr) domains too for websites here. I redirect all mail into my Orange mailbox simply for convenience so that Outlook collects it automatically (every 5 minutes). I don't want to have to log-on to a web service in order to collect my mail at home, although I can do that when I'm away.

If it turns out that Orange are deleting emails then I'll be forced to think again.

 

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[quote user="Quillan"]

Yes tj but we are talking about Orange in France and your link is to Talk Talk in the UK. The default option with Orange France is to turn anti Spam on and then to place spam in a separate folder when detected. YOU, that the account holder has the right to change the setting so that the spam mails are deleted on arrival. Personally speaking I have all anti-spam options turn off and use MailWasher Pro which works very well for me as I have something like 11 different email accounts to do with personal and business.

One quick question, how much does using MyDomain cost? It implies around $5.95 a month which is an extra cost on top of your ISP who normally gives you 5 free email address's and I assume you are in France.

[/quote] used 'talk talk" to illustrate the point ! ISP's are switching to this style of spam detection and deletion. This is true of Orange also.......... from orange website!!!!! The email anti-virus service is provided free to all our customers. Anti-virus identifies and blocks emails and attachments that contain viruses. If someone tries to send you a message that has a virus attached, it will be blocked AND YOU WONT RECEIVE IT. In addition, there are certain types of file extensions on attachments which indicate that the attached file is very likely to contain viruses. As a precaution, we'll block these emails AND YOU WILL NOT RECEIVE THEM. The sender will be notified that their email has not been delivered. As to mydomain.com its free. as to the free isp email addresses, you say you have some 11 different email addresses , all free ones I guess !, not very professional and rather unneccessary whatever your situation.
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[quote user="tj"][quote user="Quillan"]

Yes tj but we are talking about Orange in France and your link is to Talk Talk in the UK. The default option with Orange France is to turn anti Spam on and then to place spam in a separate folder when detected. YOU, that the account holder has the right to change the setting so that the spam mails are deleted on arrival. Personally speaking I have all anti-spam options turn off and use MailWasher Pro which works very well for me as I have something like 11 different email accounts to do with personal and business.

One quick question, how much does using MyDomain cost? It implies around $5.95 a month which is an extra cost on top of your ISP who normally gives you 5 free email address's and I assume you are in France.

[/quote] used 'talk talk" to illustrate the point ! ISP's are switching to this style of spam detection and deletion. This is true of Orange also.......... from orange website!!!!! The email anti-virus service is provided free to all our customers. Anti-virus identifies and blocks emails and attachments that contain viruses. If someone tries to send you a message that has a virus attached, it will be blocked AND YOU WONT RECEIVE IT. In addition, there are certain types of file extensions on attachments which indicate that the attached file is very likely to contain viruses. As a precaution, we'll block these emails AND YOU WILL NOT RECEIVE THEM. The sender will be notified that their email has not been delivered. As to mydomain.com its free. as to the free isp email addresses, you say you have some 11 different email addresses , all free ones I guess !, not very professional and rather unneccessary whatever your situation.[/quote]

I would like to check this out further, can you give me a link to the webpage (on the French website) where it says this please. Thanks in advance.

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Well, I've searched the Orange site for information on anti-spam. How tedious that was! It's not easy to find exactly what you're looking for on there.

However, there is no sign, as far as I can see, of the statement that TJ gives about spam being deleted ("you will not receive it"). The option is still available to have "indesirables" directed into a spam folder OR have it deleted, but this is for emails that you have added to the "liste rouge". In other words the client is still in control. I think the option would have been removed if they were just going to delete anything they don't like.

I haven't had time to test this out yet but I'll arrange for some "spam-like" "viagra" messages later and see what happens as well when I've added the sending addresses to my red list. I expect them all to get through to my "indesirables" folder at least.

Whilst it doesn't concern me directly, (the comment was aimed at Quillan), I'm interested to know why it is unprofessional or unecessary to have several email addresses. I have around 10. In my case several are remnants of my previous working life, but many contacts in UK and US have the addresses and still use them. I find it useful to be able to recognise the source of an email and I direct them by means of Outlook "rules" into one of 5 different inbox folders; whether it's ex-work related or in connection with my band here, or for our gite rental. I don't see anything wrong with that and it doesn't matter whether I'm paying for the addresses or not surely? (In actual fact these are paid for.)

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[quote user="sid"]

Whilst it doesn't concern me directly, (the comment was aimed at Quillan), I'm interested to know why it is unprofessional or unecessary to have several email addresses. I have around 10. In my case several are remnants of my previous working life, but many contacts in UK and US have the addresses and still use them. I find it useful to be able to recognise the source of an email and I direct them by means of Outlook "rules" into one of 5 different inbox folders; whether it's ex-work related or in connection with my band here, or for our gite rental. I don't see anything wrong with that and it doesn't matter whether I'm paying for the addresses or not surely? (In actual fact these are paid for.)

[/quote]

Well I have two business's each with website which in turn have a few email address's depending on certain functions. I also have two email address's for Ebay (I have two Ebay accounts, one for buying, the other for selling) and I have a personal account with Orange and another with Hotmail. All of them come in to Outlook and just like you I have 'Rules' to put them in specific folders. I don't know if there is a simpler way but I like 'boxes' to put things in and it works for me.

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OK, here's an update.

I set up a new email account on Yahoo (so that's ANOTHER email address I've got!). I wrote a message with "buy viagra online now" in the subject and sent it to my home address. I then wrote another message without any suspicious wording and sent that to the same address.

The innocent one got through, but not the "viagra" one. However I did receive a reply in my Yahoo mailbox saying that the message could not be delivered "message rejected OFR 513".

So, there is something going on but at least the sender does get a notification, and the mail is not exactly deleted, just not delivered. In my case I'm unlikely to miss anything important as my contacts would eventually phone up to whinge about my email provider. And for the spammers it's an indication that they're wasting their time.

I'm putting this query to bed now as I've already spent enough time on it.  

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[quote user="sid"]

The innocent one got through, but not the "viagra" one. However I did receive a reply in my Yahoo mailbox saying that the message could not be delivered "message rejected OFR 513".

So, there is something going on but at least the sender does get a notification, and the mail is not exactly deleted, just not delivered.

[/quote] does it not amount to same thing? you didnt get the mail, and no choice to accept or decline it! again.extract from orange website..... As a precaution, we'll block these emails AND YOU WILL NOT RECEIVE THEM. The sender will be notified that their email has not been delivered.
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I cannot find that quote which you've givne me twice now. Please supply the link.

A blocked email is NOT the same as a deleted email.

The "anti-spam" filter is still working incidentally; some items are being put into the "indesirables" folder, so whatever is happening it's not a blanket rejection.

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[quote user="tj"]extract from orange website..... As a precaution, we'll block these emails AND YOU WILL NOT RECEIVE THEM. The sender will be notified that their email has not been delivered.[/quote]

What is the point of a quote from a website if you cannot provide a link? I have looked on the Orange site as well and cannot find your quote! Come on get a grip and show us where it is.

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tj, that page mentions nothing about messages being blocked and the customer not receiving them. It is only about spam and not messages that may contain a virus.

There seems to be some confusion between spam and potential virus carrying messages.

you were talking earlier about spam detection and deletion but then mentioned Orange's email anti-virus service

[quote user="tj"] ISP's are switching to this style of spam detection

and deletion. This is true of Orange also.......... from orange

website!!!!! The email anti-virus service is provided free to all our

customers. Anti-virus identifies and blocks emails and attachments that

contain viruses. If someone tries to send you a message that has a virus

attached, it will be blocked AND YOU WONT RECEIVE IT. In addition,

there are certain types of file extensions on attachments which indicate

that the attached file is very likely to contain viruses. As a

precaution, we'll block these emails AND YOU WILL NOT RECEIVE THEM. The

sender will be notified that their email has not been delivered.[/quote]

I have seached on the Orange site and I can find no mention of general blocking of emails either. This does not mean that they do not do it but as far as spam is concerned, your link confirms the opposite i.e. that the customer has control of the messages and they are filtered to the 'indesirables' folder and not deleted

The reason we can't find your quote on the Orange France site is because it is from the Orange UK site. I thought the English was too good.

http://help.orange.co.uk/orangeuk/support/personal/228041 and does not apply to France.

If you can find similar information on the Orange France site about blocking and deletion of emails then let us know.

Danny

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this is all getting rather tedious,,,,

from orange france, the link I gave

aussi au pourcentage de bons messages bloqués par erreur.

in english, it says,,,also a percentage of good messages will be blocked in error.

that is a result of the shortcomings of spam detection software.

I think its really a no brainer, if you have suddenly stopped receiving your usual amount of spam, and your spam folder is empty, then the isp is deleting/blocking emails without any chance for you to see if it is mail you wanted or were expecting.
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You may feel it is getting tedious but you are misunderstanding the contents of that page.

As I said, the "messages bloqués" are not completely blocked i.e. deleted so the customer does not recieve them. If they are deemed to be spam, they are only diverted from the inbox (boîte aux lettres) and placed in the spam (messages indésirables) folder. The customer is invited to check this folder regularly to verify that  these messages are indeed spam messages.

"Un bon message en provenance d'un expéditeur ne figurant pas dans votre

liste verte arrive dans votre boîte aux lettres. Celui-ci est analysé

par l'anti-spam et est identifié à tort comme étant un spam.

Vous pourrez alors consulter ce message dans le dossier de messages indésirables.

Si l'expéditeur est connu de vous et de toute confiance, vous pouvez alors l'ajouter à votre liste verte.

Les messages en provenance de cet expéditeur ne seront plus filtrés.

Lors de la réception de vos messages, via votre logiciel de messagerie,

il sera normalement relevé."

As I also mentioned, that whole page is about Spam and control of these messages by the customer - no mention of messages not getting through.

Your last sentence

"I think its really a no brainer, if you have suddenly stopped receiving

your usual amount of spam, and your spam folder is empty, then the isp

is deleting/blocking emails without any chance for you to see if it is

mail you wanted or were expecting."

really contradicts everything on that page too.

You may be right that messages are being blocked/deleted but it would be useful if you had something relevant to support that view.

Danny

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