Norton 360 and anti-spam

[marg23styron]

Hi members. I hope you can help me. I have the latest version of Norton 360on my computer and both norton and windows tell me that my computer is running fine, which it appears to be. However, I have just read an article on page 34 of "which" magazine from january 2008 which says that Norton 360 does not have anti-spam and that this has to be downloaded from someone else. Is this true? I'm worried that my computer has not been protected from spam for the last eighteen months since we bought the computer. I'm hoping that because the "which" article is 18 months old Norton has fixed the problem since then and is now protecting me. PLEASE HELP!

[Budfred]

Anti-spam usually means that it filters SPAM or it warns you that an email might be infected... I don't know what "which" magazine is, but it is probably not completely true that Norton doesn't provide SPAM protection in the sense that it will, I believe, scan incoming email for indications of malicious software... That doesn't mean that it will stop SPAM...

Usually stopping SPAM is a matter of how your ISP (Internet Service Provider) is set up, choices you make and add-on filters you might use... SPAM that is not infected is not really a threat, it is an annoyance...

For example, my ISP offers SPAM filtering for my email accounts and I have turned them off... I don't trust their filtering to let my mail through... However, I use MailWasher to screen my mail and delete any SPAM as well as putting it on a blacklist to delete any more from that source... The main source of repeat SPAM that I receive is my ISP advertising some feature of theirs -- they have it set up so that if you want to receive important bulletins about the service, you also get the SPAM... I get very little SPAM because I am very careful about who gets my email address... I have one account set up to be my public account... If that one starts getting a lot of SPAM, I will notify the people that I want to have my address that I am dropping it and I will switch to a new public address... Almost the only SPAM I get is random SPAM in which they will spoof large numbers of addresses in the hopes of getting some hits...

Other than annoyance, the other threats from SPAM are phishing and other scams... This typically involves someone offering you a large amount of money for doing something simple... By the time you are done, you may have serious legal problems and no money anywhere... There are also scams like someone claiming to be the tax service insisting that you log into a site with your important personal information and address whatever the supposed issue is... Often it turns out you are due a massive refund or something like that... When you log in and give them your information, they may just use it to rob you or they may try to get some from you directly... The general rule of thumb is to never click on a link in an email unless you are sure you know the sender and have some reason to believe that he/she is sending you something like that... Criminals will also use other people's email addresses to fool you, so contact the person if you are not sure what it is about... I once deleted an email with a gift that I thought was a scam because I didn't recognize it, but then the person who sent it notified me in another way that it was from him... I lost the gift as a result... The best bet is to let someone know in an earlier email if you plan to send something like that...

There are other scams and the main way to protect yourself is to use caution and common sense...

Going back to your original question -- you probably don't need anti-SPAM software... However, if you don't have an antispyware/anti-malware component in your Norton, it would be a good idea to install one... Spybot is a good option that offers free resident protection that you just turn on... There are others, but they tend to be a bit more complex... If Norton does have protection, it is not a good idea to run more than one version of a type of resident protection at a time, so check before installing something else...

[marg23styron]

Thanks again for your help - much appreciated. I'm now looking for the solved button to click on it but can't find it, so will just say to you now that your reply solved my issue. Thanks!

[Budfred]

Happy to help...

We don't use a 'Solved' button because other people may have ideas to offer and some people will use the info indefinitely...