Jerry wrote:

Problem is many US companies have the spam created here in us and the
sent to the internet from servers located overseas so they are untouchable
from us laws etc..

You are correct, many people have unprotected computers with outdated
o/s and or no virus software.

Example is at my university they processed a weeks worth of email in 24 hours
due to that nasty virus that was going around a few months ago. Our mainframe
ftp server gets requests from almost every pc on the campus that is infected,
campus net can't or won't pull the plug on their ip address.

Best thing I can suggest is check out following sites and get protected.

http://grc.com lots of info no charge and learn how to protect your pc.

http://www.lavasoftusa.com/ no charge ad aware v 6.0
finds and then removes many types of spy ware and ad tracking software that
is installed when you visit websites (without your knowledge or permission !)

Another couple things that are important IMO. Get ZoneAlarm. And then
as an added protection, get a Proxy server such as Proxomitron. (free,
so I'll forgive the strange name)

I have another firewall on my D-Link router, so I'm running two
firewalls, and a proxy server.

The proxy eliminates all ad's from a website that don't originate from
that website, which is a big source of spyware. It kills popups too, and
several other annoying things such as converts blinkies to bold type,
kills nosey Javascripts, does selective cookie accept/refusal and lots
of other handy configurable things.

The only downside is that when you go to a site that has lots of the
intrusive stuff on it, (and it is an education to see which sites do
this) it will take a little longer to load the page.

Remember, Mister Website is NOT your friend!

Now what I want is a mailreader that will refuse all exe's, bat's,
etcetera and leave them on the server, never to reach my machine. (no, I
will not use Outlook in any shape or form) I haven't looked too hard,
anyone know of some good ones?

- Mike KB3EIA -