A firewall is not going to stop spam from hitting your inbox, once the mail has snuck by your ISP's filtering (or lack thereof). Its interesting that started experiencing this since your move to Sympatico, as you're not the only one I have heard this from. It is almost like Sympatico is in on it, it's so bad.
As for a solution? There are things to try that you may already know of, but never are there guarantees: NEVER unsubscribe from a piece of spam. If they see signs of life from your address, they know they got a live one and it'll keep on coming from them and others that they share with. If your email client has the ability to preview your email's subject line and address info ONLY, without seeing the ENTIRE email when you click on it, DO THIS (or, turn the preview pane off). Even if you view a piece of email, and if that email has html and jpeg images in it, they can detect that YOU, SPECIFICALLY exist, because that email they sent to you is grabbing specific image files that they have already associated with YOUR email (the jpegs are specific to the email they sent YOU). Never put your email address in online forums. If you must, mangle the crap out of it by doing something like this: mNaOwSnPbaMckATsNyOmSpPaAtMicoDOTca (typed "NOSPAM" in capitols, spread throughout your address AND took out the "@" symbol and typed "AT" in its place. Ditto with the "." in "dot ca". Use a Hotmail account for the crap. Now, this would be an interesting experiment: You can have up to five Sympatico email accounts with your plan. So, create an additional Sympatico account... AND DO NOTHING WITH IT. See if any garbage winds up in THAT Inbox! Good luck, MacDuff -- Mac Canada is sponsored by <http://lowendmac.com/> and... Shop Canadian, visit Mantek Services <http://www.mantek.mb.ca> Low Prices That Will Keep YOU and Your MAC Smiling Educational discounts are now available Support Low End Mac <http://lowendmac.com/lists/support.html> Mac Canada info: <http://lowendmac.com/lists/mac-can.shtml> --> AOL users, remove "mailto:"; Send list messages to: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To unsubscribe, email: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> For digest mode, email: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Subscription questions: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Archive: <http://www.mail-archive.com/mac-canada%40mail.maclaunch.com/> Using a Mac? Free email & more at Applelinks! http://www.applelinks.com
