A way to prove M$ Lame, for non-technical types

[pkd_lives]

Open up an account with hotmail - I know, I know but we are trying to convert by comparision.  Choose something a little strange, that might not have been used before.

Set up accounts in yahoo, and any other freebee e-mail you wish. Which one gets spammed first? which gets most spam? which one has the spam filter that barely works? Which one gets the most offensive spam? After a day you're hotmail should be 'spam active'. Note you probably have not even sent an e-mail out. Use the e-mail for subscription sites, if you want to speed the process up (commercial ones with no intention of selling you're info).

After a week or two use the block. Whilst the same sites will stop hitting you, you're spam count should now rise (in hotmail at least). Point out that spam addressed to only part of your address is hitting you (how?)

Now tell me M$ are not lame.

I have done this and started to convert people away from hotmail (two success stories, and a few I still need to beat over the head). One small step. It helps to have a few alternatives, search the web, there are loads. Point out, the extra space you get, the customer friendly terms and conditions. The helpful advice, the explanations of web beacons, and what info they gather from you, in clear language. These other companies tell you exactly what their motives are, I have found almost none who try to hide in language (those who do are generally aliasing sites, not free e-mail sites). And if they argue that M$ gets more attention, point them to Yahoo (which is also very high profile), I don't know the exact figures (but were they not one of the first to offer free e-mail?). once you start using these other services you can start using different browsers on sites that have good code behind them, so they work on Moz., and Opera (prove how discriminating M$ is in designing to benefit IE). My roommates LOVE mozilla.

And if you want to scare them, search the terms and conditons for :  MATERIALS PROVIDED TO MICROSOFT OR POSTED AT ANY MSN WEB SITE.

Now forget the hotmail account. Never go back, never log in again. Also you should probably do this in an internet cafe, that way M$ can't spy on your system.

I currently have several accounts. I have been running a yahoo and a hotmail side by side. This is their six month anniversary.

Count: Yahoo = NO SPAM YET.   Hotmail = up to 50 a day.

Try it out first if you want to make sure, or if you are a visitor and doubt the validity of this site. If you're results are seriously different to mine I will be very suprised.

Spam :  E-mail sent to you, by third parties, unsolicited, in any form, and if it says you signed up to accept this e-mail and therefore it cannot be considered spam, despite the fact you did not sign up, is spam. E-mail purporting to increase the size of various body parts, pills that solve every problem on earth, sexual offerings, news offerings, investor offerings, etc, are all SPAM.

I am most assuredly sorry to be in any way advocating a M$ service, but it is by way of showing people there are alternatives to everything M$.

You just have to wake up, yes the sun is bright, but each day is a new day of wonder that is worth a minute of pain.

Okay that is an offering to convert the heathen. Does anyone have a fantastic link (for non-technical) to point out why XP should never be connected to the web (my roomie has XP on a laptop)    .

[preacher]

Well, I never signed up for hotmail(thank God), but I did sign up for yahoo mail, and I have to say, for a free service, they do a damn good job. I actually have 2 email accounts, one for my website, and one for my friends and family to use. Naturally my website gets a ton of junk email probably from a few "fans" of mine who thought it would be funny to put me on gay porn and beastiality mailing lists. Yahoo's bulk mail blocker catches 95% of that mail. My other email address, which very few people have, gets absolutely no spam whatsoever(knock on wood). The other issue is space. Yahoo gives me 6mb of space for emails, while I hear hotmail only provides 2 mb. Perhaps I can give up yahoo soon too and get postfix running. I guess that would be the best option.

[Zombie9920]

Yahoo Mail = No spam? Bullshit d00d. If you go into Yahoo chat you will notice that there are automated porn bots who send porn URLs to everyone in the room through Private Messages or in the chat room. Those same porn bots also mass mail Yahoo members meaning that you get thier spam in your mailbox. If you want spam free E-Mail just use the E-Mail account you were given with your ISP. Well, if you are dumb enough to use AOL as an ISP then you will probably get spam mail through your ISP's mail account also. If you have a real ISP then spam mail with the ISP mail account should't be a problem unless you signed up for the crap.

I don't get spam mail because I don't give my main E-Mail addy out to any websites that ask for an E-Mail addy.

[ May 23, 2002: Message edited by: Zombie9920 ]

[Gooseberry Clock]

quote:Originally posted by pkd_lives:
Which one gets spammed first? which gets most spam?

AOL of course.

I'm on Yahoo. Here's an example of the kind of crap they put out:

quote:I am the new database manager for GM Media Corp., publishers of
Service Provider Weekly Magazine.

Due to a massive database failure we need to confirm your subscription status.
If you did not subscribe to the magazine, or do not wish to continue your subscription,
you need do nothing and you will not be contacted by us ever again.

If you would like to continue to receive the magazine FREE every week, please click
on the link below and confirm your email address:

CONFIRM SUBSCRIPTION

Please accept our apologies for having to contact you in this manner, but we had
little choice. We now make a complete back-up of the database on a daily basis and
to multiple locations and should not encounter any problems in the future.

Once again our thanks for your help and understanding.

Wallace Thompson
Database Manager
GM Media Corp.

Now that's just pathetic!

[ May 23, 2002: Message edited by: Gooseberry Clock ]

[preacher]

quote:  ahoo Mail = No spam? Bullshit d00d. If you go into Yahoo chat...

Well, I wasnt talking about yahoo chat, I was talking about yahoo mail. My point is that I don't get any spam, Im not saying that noone on yahoo gets spam.

[Master of Reality]

only 50 a day?
My e-mail at hotmail gets at least 70/day. It nows has 1400 e-mails in it. The hotmail staff used to be deleting about 80 a day to make my account under the limit, but they might just be blocking it now.

[Zombie9920]

quote:Originally posted by ThePreacher:


Well, I wasnt talking about yahoo chat, I was talking about yahoo mail. My point is that I don't get any spam, Im not saying that noone on yahoo gets spam.

I was talking about Yahoo chat AND Yahoo mail. The same spam bots in chat send spam E-Mails to Yahoo E-Mail accounts. If you are in chat and a spam bot enters the room you can count on getting some spam E-Mails sometime soon because the stupid things log every name in every room that they visit so they can spam people.

[Ctrl Alt Del 123]

Yahoo and Hotmail BOTH suck. I use www.myrealbox.com The ONLY free e-mail worth signing up to.

PS. It's running Novel! So all you MS haters, feel secure.

[Refalm]

Or GMX.net... free e-mail, 6 MB, POP3 and SMTP and running Apache on Linux  

[Ctrl Alt Del 123]

www.myrealbox.com boasts 10 MB and all the good stuff. However, here is their spam policy:

Spam is no good.
Don't do it.
It causes bad karma and cancer (and perhaps some other diseases).
Yes, this is true.
No, it's not a joke.
Oh, and spammers rot in hell.

Neither Novell

[slave]

Hotmail is absolutely great.  I love it and use it every day, and I get no spam either.  The MSN messenger even notifies you when mail is in your inbox.

[Ctrl Alt Del 123]

Hotmail is OK, but there is better, much better.

[micky]

Hotmail is much worse than yahoo.

I have both accounts my Yahoo acount which has been running for about a year now.

I use that mainly for porn emails.    So you would expect a lot of spam. But the filter manages to catch what little I get.

By comparison, I signed up for a hotmail account to use until I get my work email sorted out. It has been active for just under 1 month. I only use it only for work emails. And at the moment I get about 5-10 spam emails a day, some porn some not.

Now it is intresting how I can get porn spam in a email box I only use for work and the yahoo I use for porn, I get next to none.

Now which do you think is the best.

[Chooco]

i don't know what it is but i NEVER get spam on Hotmail.

after realizing that this self formatting thing that my Win98 box was doing (it would actually stop booting and i would have to format or reinstall Winblows) i decided that the only way to make my email always accessable was to have an internet account....hotmail. i setup my account then registered to tons of forums such as this place and went on with life. i see thing like this saying Hotmail has spam up the ass and so on but i have NEVER recieved spam.......well i have but that was about 4 months after i registered, i think one of my enemies put me on a mailing list because i'm the admin of a game server and my email is publicly posted on the website.

[ahri]

"If you want spam free E-Mail just use the E-Mail account you were given with your ISP."

nonsence,
when i first got dsl and checked my e-mail for the first time (within hours of signing up) i had spam

that's got to be a record