4 replies to this topic

[marko]

Please note whilst this latest problem concerns gmail, it may still affect all email accounts so if you are a member of the site please read "What you can do to help".

FreewareBB have once again been blocked sending email to it's users, the latest mail provider to block us is GMail.   As any member on the site will already know, we don't send spam, we don't use our mailing list for the benefit of others and we usually keep emails to something like 1 a week, sometimes not even that!.

What you can do to help
Add our sending email to your whitelist or email contacts (noreply at freewarebb dot com) and make sure any mail from us isn't marked as 'junk' or 'spam' mail.   We adhere to all the usual anti-spam policies and provide opt-out details on every email we send, so if you no longer wish to receive emails from the Admin you can easily stop them by following the link provided at the bottom of each mail.

Thanks for your assistance.
Marko

[James (Jim) Hillier]

I reckon Google have a $%#@* cheek. They do absolutely nothing to help prevent the proliferation of spam emanating from their own service. Using GMail is akin to having as many disposable email accounts as one needs. If they were serious about introducing methods to try and thwart spammers they should have a good long look at themselves first. A good start would be to identify each account (holder) by location; why can't we have email addresses that are country specific....e.g. jim hillier at gmail.com.au or bill bloggs at gmail.com.usa. That would at least be a step in the right direction.

Mind you, among the web based email providers, Google are not alone in this regard.

That's my delicate rant for the day....

Cheers....Jim

[marko]

Tis a growing trend Jim, many of the "disposable" email address do seem to be signing up to all manner of spam filters and rules which is great when they work, but a poor show when legitimate mail from legitimate sites (such as ours) have their IP's blocked whilst those with illicit intentions can easily masquerade their original locations and send mail to any one of the free mail providers and subsequently hit the end users mailbox.

I've no doubt that part of the problem is some people sign up to our site with fake email addresses from hotmail, gmail, yahoo and when the system sends them an email to validate their account we're basically getting errors returned because the email address doesn't exist, do this over a few months at a rate of something like 10-20 emails per week and we're beginning to look as though we're sending mail in the hope it reaches a real user, when the reality is those issue's are generated from those people that have little else to occupy their sad existence!.

If this continues, we'll basically just have to start removing the ability for people to sign up using the free mail accounts which will no doubt hurt the site, but then again any reputable, decent and hard working site on the net always struggles against the bigger, "don't give a crap" sites because, well, they don't give a crap, and use any method possible to gain exposure whilst at the same time flying under the radar of detection, end result for the user? Well, an inbox full of spam and a whole page full of links and advertising with much of the content being virtually useless - end result for the site? A whole heap of cash in advertising revenue which allows them to generate even more junk, spam and sites of a similar nature.

This, I believe, is the shape of things to come on the net which is why services such as WOT and SiteAdvisor should really be installed on everyone's computer as a matter of course ... yes, sometimes they can get it wrong, but WOT in particular is very proactive and usually rectifies mistakes very quickly!.

That's my delicate rant for the day  
Cheers
Marko

[jjj]

Yes there are problems with these email accounts. However they have their uses ( anonymity , not owning a computer , changeover of computers, ISP going bust, being a few)
It seems FWBB messages are getting through to my gmail account - added noreply at freewarebb dot com anyway .
So far the inbuilt filters have worked well, better than those from our main ISP email account which I seldom use.
Maybe another way can be found to get pass these filters on other email accounts without opening the floodgates to unwanted spam.

[marko]

Thankfully it would appear our request to be unblocked by google has been granted
Thanks to anyone who helped by adding our email address to their whitelist