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urban · Apr 24, 2004, 04:36 PM

Hello, ppl. I would like to know if it's possible that I can have an email only .Mac account. I have no need for the other services a full .mac membership offers. I simply just need an email account. I could just hotmail or school mail account but I want a .mac email account.

I read that once you are a full .mac member you can create email accounts and change your account to email only. Now I am trying out the trial version of the .mac, is there any way I can create an email only account?

thanx.

Mr. Blur · Apr 24, 2004, 05:15 PM

.mac members can *add* email-only accounts as part of their own for an added cost of $10 each per year. these mail-only accounts *must* be linked to someone's .mac account though....there is no .mac mail-only option.

if you go to http://www.mac.com and click on help and read through the info it will tell you all you need to know.

urban · Apr 24, 2004, 05:44 PM

that's what I thought...

that's too bad...

sniffer · Apr 24, 2004, 05:55 PM

Not really ^^. @mac.com has become the red eye for the spammers recently. I wouldn't bother as things stands right now even if I could get a mail only account. On the other hand @hotmail.com have a superb spam filter.

This is unacceptable of .Mac.

Mr. Blur · Apr 24, 2004, 07:47 PM

Originally posted by sniffer:
Not really ^^. @mac.com has become the red eye for the spammers recently. I wouldn't bother as things stands right now even if I could get a mail only account. On the other hand @hotmail.com have a superb spam filter. This is unacceptable of .Mac.

you got that right. if they don't improve the filtering before it hits my mailbox i definitely will not renew this fall.

SS3 GokouX · Apr 24, 2004, 07:52 PM

While at the same time Hotmail's spam filter filters out tons of mail that really isn't spam.

spiky_dog · Apr 24, 2004, 11:04 PM

Originally posted by Mr. Blur:
you got that right. if they don't improve the filtering before it hits my mailbox i definitely will not renew this fall.

eh. mail.app is doing a good job for me of filtering out the junk, although there certainly has been a wave recently... hotmail, on the other hand, had a 0/165 record when i checked my box today, as in it didn't catch ANY of the spam.

Big Mac · Apr 27, 2004, 02:00 AM

I have had absolutely no problems with spam on my .Mac account. Spam is only a problem if the user allows it to be. If you don't spread your email address around by subscribing to unscrupulous sites, you shouldn't have a problem with it.

Neo.cmg · Apr 27, 2004, 02:43 PM

Actually, I have to agree with earlier posters. It seems as of the past 2-3 weeks I've begun to be inundated with spam. Irregardless of how careful you are with letting others know of your e-mail address, many addresses can be guessed by spammers and it only takes one small confirmation to get on a list that's passed around by other spammers. I'm not sure what caused this most recent influx of spam at my .mac account, but it's giving mail's filter a work-out for sure.

mattyd · Apr 27, 2004, 03:17 PM

Originally posted by Neo.cmg:
Actually, I have to agree with earlier posters. It seems as of the past 2-3 weeks I've begun to be inundated with spam. Irregardless of how careful you are with letting others know of your e-mail address, many addresses can be guessed by spammers and it only takes one small confirmation to get on a list that's passed around by other spammers. I'm not sure what caused this most recent influx of spam at my .mac account, but it's giving mail's filter a work-out for sure.

same here, and i NEVER use my .mac account for anything other than corresponding with friends and family. i have other accounts that i use for business, subscriptions, etc.

CatOne · Apr 27, 2004, 03:20 PM

Originally posted by sniffer:
Not really ^^. @mac.com has become the red eye for the spammers recently. I wouldn't bother as things stands right now even if I could get a mail only account. On the other hand @hotmail.com have a superb spam filter. This is unacceptable of .Mac.

Hmmm. I've had a .Mac account for 18 months now. Total spams received... 0 or 1 (I can't recall). So it's not THAT much of a spam target, or else you've put your email somewhere that it's really been harvested.

If emails are DIRECTLY to you and to not many others... it's very tough for a spam filter to catch.

angelmb · Apr 27, 2004, 03:45 PM

Me also, I have a .mac account plus another three e-mail accounts being one of them a hotmail account. As somebody wrote, I use the .mac with 'trusted' friends and certain serious things.

I distribute another e-mails between the another three accounts. To be honest I receive some spam in the .mac lately, which really surprise me.

The hotmail one is really funny, e-mails from the hotmail team are shown as spam

stuffedmonkey · Apr 27, 2004, 03:50 PM

I would speculate one problem is that mail.app downloads images in HTML mail by default. That is a common trick for a spammer to see if you are a real address - if the image is on a remote server - the spammer knows when you load it.

Also - spammers that guess your email will miss you if your account is complicated - John2333atWork@mac.com or something like that. Unfortunately mine is my initials. I get probably 20 spams a day.... I dont know where they came from in the beginning,

Neo.cmg · Apr 28, 2004, 02:59 PM

Originally posted by stuffedmonkey:
I would speculate one problem is that mail.app downloads images in HTML mail by default. That is a common trick for a spammer to see if you are a real address - if the image is on a remote server - the spammer knows when you load it.

Also - spammers that guess your email will miss you if your account is complicated - John2333atWork@mac.com or something like that. Unfortunately mine is my initials. I get probably 20 spams a day.... I dont know where they came from in the beginning,

Well, in Panther Mail will not load the images of an e-mail if it thinks the message is junk. However, it only really takes one message to get by the filter, load the images, and spammers can have a spamapalooza with your e-mail account.

Neo.cmg

wataru · 12:35 PM

Just set Mail to not display remote images in emails. At least in Panther's Mail this will give you a button on the top of the message window that lets you load images at your discretion. I keep it this way and haven't had a spam image sneak through yet.

I had someone ask me about how to turn off images in mail, so here it is: If you're running OS X 10.3, just go to Mail.app's preferences, then the "Viewing" tab. Then uncheck "Display images and embedded objects in HTML messages." This won't prevent it from displaying attached images, but those are safe anyway. In 10.2's Mail I believe the setting is in a similar place, but you won't get the option to view the images on a mail-by-mail basis.

thePurpleGiant · Apr 28, 2004, 08:31 PM

One thing that many people don't realise, is that you email address itself can make a difference in how much spam you get.

For instance: If had a .Mac email address 'sam@mac.com' - this is quite short, and only contains letters. When a spammer, or a spammers computer is generating random anything@mac.com emails, it is quite easily generated. On the other hand, an address like stephanie@mac.com would get less, due to the fact that there are so many letter combinations required to get a longer name.

So if I wanted less spam, I could register j45b81rue@mac.com - sure its horribly un-catchy, but I would guarantee you would get less spam, since the username would take so many thousands (millions?) of combinations to get that address.

sniffer · May 1, 2004, 06:04 AM

Perhaps I should put some use in my l33t speak knowledge for my next reassignment of .Mac so I get a safer username? That will show them. I kind of miss the sync and backup features.

(My account expired a couple of weeks ago)