McAfee Anti-Spam
paul heczko
I have been working with McAfee's Tier2 support team since mid-July to try to solve the problem I'm having in TBird. I have a McAfee Anti-Spam button with drop-down menu on my tool bar. Whenever I highlight a message and click on the button to 'mark as spam', nothing happens. In fact, none of the drop-down choices work. I have uninstalled and reinstalled McAfee Total Protection several times with the same result.
Finally this week, McAfee's Tier2 support called to tell me it is a problem with the version of TBird that I'm using, which is 3.1.7. I don't remember which version I had prior to July as I've updated every time one becomes available.
I assume you are aware of this issue.....?
Can you help?
Thank you
Jay Garcia
--- Original Message ---
You can either wait for McAfee to catch up to TB 3.1.7 or roll back to a
previous version.
--
*Jay Garcia - Netscape/Flock Champion*
www.ufaq.org
Netscape - Firefox - SeaMonkey - Flock - Thunderbird
Keith Nuttle
asked about the their McAfee Antispam problem with Thunderbird. The
problem started when I upgraded from 2 to 3. I have kept Thunderbird
current and I am now running 3.1.7. I have also faithfully updated my
McAfee software.
It seems that after nearly a year they could have overcome the problem.
I personally don't think they are trying very hard. At one time I
believe you could only update McAfee if you had IE.
Joe Brown
I'll confirm the above. I had the problem when I went from V2 to V3.
Reported it. Got a call and worked with one of their folks without
success. The person I worked with didn't know much and I had no
confidence in him. Been living with it every since. It does flag some
email as SPAM but it leaves it in the Inbox instead of putting it in the
McAfee Antispam folder. Marking something SPAM or not SPAM does nothing.
Greywolf
[snip tales of woe]
I use Tbird's built-in anti-spam features, which are good enough that
my e-mail averages less than one spam message a day. When spam traffic
increases, I go to my ISP's web portal for mail, and mark incoming spam
there. That improves their filters, and for a while spam drops to zero.
Then it starts to climb again.
To reduce spam in TBird:
Set Tbird to move it to the Junk folder. Check and empty that from time
to time (all filters sometimes mark legit mails as Junk.) Best to do
this for each account individually. The Junk mail controls are in
Account Settings. Then get in the habit of marking Junk (click on the
dot in the flame icon column.) For Newsgroups, you'll have to build
filters manually, unfortunately.
If your ISP has a web-mail portal, got to it now and then and check
offending mail as spam there. That will improve their filters. IMO, an
ISP should offer this service as SOP, if they don't, change ISPs. There
is no reason for an ISP to leave filtering up to you, and every reason
for them to do so on their servers. Junk/spam wastes bandwidth, which ie
becoming precious.
Finally, there's no reason to stay with McAfee, just because that's what
you started with. MacAfee is extremely average, to put it politely. Go
to: alt.comp.anti-virus and ask for recommendations. I use Vipre as
real-time shield, and Spybot S&D, Malwarebytes AntiMalware for on-demand
scans every other week or so.
HTH
Wolf K.
Jari Fredriksson
>
> I have been working with McAfee's Tier2 support team since mid-July to try to solve the problem I'm having in TBird. I have a McAfee Anti-Spam button with drop-down menu on my tool bar. Whenever I highlight a message and click on the button to 'mark as spam', nothing happens. In fact, none of the drop-down choices work. I have uninstalled and reinstalled McAfee Total Protection several times with the same result.
>
> Finally this week, McAfee's Tier2 support called to tell me it is a problem with the version of TBird that I'm using, which is 3.1.7. I don't remember which version I had prior to July as I've updated every time one becomes available.
>
Sounds like they have an add-on, and that is not compatible with the
current version. The same as with any add-on modules.
--
You have an unusual understanding of the problems of human relationships.
Keith Nuttle
improved, but it still does not work the way McAfee claims. You can not
use it to change the status of a message or access any of the other
functions of the icon.
What ever they did to it, it has messed up the toolbars for the Message
edit window and broke the "Mark all read" addon. I do not know what
else has been broken in their attempts to fix the McAfee addon.
Greywolf
[...]
> Considering the fact that it now can be remove from the tool bar it has
> improved, but it still does not work the way McAfee claims. You can not
> use it to change the status of a message or access any of the other
> functions of the icon.
>
> What ever they did to it, it has messed up the toolbars for the Message
> has been broken in their attempts to fix the McAfee add-on.
Another cause of hiccups and glitches is e-mail scanning by your AV
program. Turn it off. If you have a good shield, one that scans any
file when opened the first time, you don't need e-mail protection.
Also, there is no need to use a 3rd party add-on to control spam. As you
have dsicovered, such add-ons can cause havoc. Use Tbird's built in
filtering ability, it's about as good as they come.
Unfortunately, reducing spam takes work, but it pays. I average less
than one spam message per day here. Here's some advice based on my and
other people's experience:
a) For each account (address), check the "Move Junk Mail" box, and
select the Junk folder for that account. Do not use global anything.
b) Mark all junk as it comes in (click the dot in the column with the
flame icon at the top.) This helps TBird build and refine its filters.
c) Check the Junk folder before you empty it. Filters will from time to
time put legitimate messages there. Unmark those, they should move back
into Inbox; if not, do it manually.
d) Your ISP should be filtering junk mail before it even gets to you; if
it doesn't, dump it. If your ISP offers a web portal for mail, go there
every other week or so, and mark incoming spam/junk mail. That will
improve their filters, and you'll get less spam (for a while, anyhow).
Also check the spam folder, see c) above.
e) set up at least three addresses, and rigorously use them as intended:
one for friends'n'family only, one for business only, one for web only
(ie, for registering with vendors, etc.) Most ISPs offer a dozen or more
e-mail addresses per subscriber.
f) _Never_ click on a suspicious message, especially those that show up
on news groups. A hefty dose or paranoia helps, even messages from
friends'n'family can be evil.
g) Set up filters for newsgroups manually (I know, TBird should enable
Mark as Junk for NG posts, too, but that seems to be very low on their
priority list.)
HTH
Wolf K.