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Oddly, my spam dramatically increased AFTER I started using mailwasher.

Mine decreased. What I have foundis if I use any greeting cards, or article forwarding or received one of those dreaded forwards I tend to get a tidal wave of junk afterwards. But as I keep bouncing them they decrease. So I have an address just for junk that I use forgreetings cards only and the rest stays clean.

Mailwasher has worked for me so far.

Oddly, my spam dramatically increased AFTER I started using mailwasher.

I can see where that might happen if your e-mail/domain situation is similar to mine:

The idea behind Mailwasher is to help reduce SPAM by:

allowing you to delete it without downloading it to your computer; and/or
bouncing the SPAM back to the spammer as undeliverable (clog HIS mail server).

If you just delete the SPAM without bouncing it, the spammer will assume you received the message and will send you more.

But if you bounce the SPAM back (as I do), a different situation arises.

Mailwasher has you specify an e-mail address that will be shown to the spammer when Mailwasher bounces his SPAM back to him. It effectively tells the spammer, "No one here at this address." The brighter spammers know of this tactic.

If you have your own internet domain (e.g., "www.stolarstorm.com") and can receive e-mail there (stolarstorm@stolarstorm.com) or via the ISP that hosts the space (stolarstorm@hostingisp.com), you would specify ONE of those two addresses in Mailwasher as your "no one here" address.

Let's say you select "stolarstorm@hostingisp.com" as that address.

If the spammer sent the SPAM to stolarstorm@stolarstorm.com, Mailwasher would identify it as SPAM and bounce it back, saying, "there's no one here by the name stolarstorm@hostingisp.com."

But the spammer knows he sent his SPAM to stolarstorm@stolarstorm.com. So the bounce can tip him off to a connection between "stolarstorm@hostingisp.com" and "stolarstorm@stolarstorm.com". The spammer then has TWO e-mail addresses on you.

What to do? Here's what I've done, with good results:

Specify a WRONG return e-mail address ("solarstorm@solarstorm.com") in Mailwasher.
Customize Mailwasher to just bounce known SPAM and to NOT alert you when it comes.

Hope this helps. Mailwasher really is a cool utility.