0Spam Frequently Asked Questions

What is 0Spam.com and how does it work?

0spam express free spam filter0Spam.com is a free, virtually 100% effective anti-spam service designed for POP E-mail accounts as well as Yahoo and Gmail. In theory, 0Spam.com blocks all spam messages if you have setup your account properly.

This FAQ page that the Tutorial describe in detail how to setup and tweak your settings to block all spam. Unlike other anti-spam services that use filters which don’t filter out all the spam and even filter out non-spam, 0Spam.com uses a white-listing technique that safely removes spam from one or more inboxes.

0Spam.com is not a software program, you need not download or install any software for it to work, and there is no need to change the way your E-mail accounts are currently setup. When a spammer sends you a spam E-mail, if his address is not found in your whitelist of allowed E-mail addresses, the message is temporarily stored on our server in your JunkMail folder and a verification E-mail is sent back to the spammer asking them to verify that they are a human and not a computer. Once you have joined 0Spam.com and configured your E-mail accounts, nothing more is required on your part.

Other main features include a blocklist of E-mail addresses that you never want to see again, a keyword/phrase blocklist, a domain whitelist, and a keyword/phrase whitelist where if a certain keyword or phrase is found in the mail, it will not be removed from your E-mail account.

Whitelists provide advantages over typical spam filters, which filter out mails if they contain various amounts of certain words or symbols. Spam filters are not always entirely accurate and must be updated constantly to work properly, which causes some real mail from your friends to be deleted. With our service, E-mail from your friends can not possibly be filtered out from your inbox because once your friends E-mail has been whitelisted, their E-mail will never be scanned again as a possible spam mail.

Another difference between our service and other anti-spam software is that many anti-spam tools require that they be installed as a plug-in with your E-mail client, such as Outlook or Eudora, which scan each message before you check your E-mail for spam. This can sometimes take minutes to complete, depending on your Internet connection. Our service however is dedicated to constantly scanning your E-mail account and removing spams.

Will 0Spam.com work on my Operating System?

Since 0Spam.com is implemented on our servers, it will work with any operating system that can run a POP or IMAP email client, or one that can run gmail or yahoo in a web browser. This list includes all versions of Microsoft Windows, Mac OS, Linux, FreeBSD, and many more obscure operating systems. For full functionality, Windows users can use the 0Spam.com Express tool, and users of other operating systems can use the POPSpam tool. In short, the answer is almost certainly yes.

Will there be any changes in the way I send or receive E-mail?

No. You will continue to send and receive E-mail the same way you always do. Your E-mail address will not change and there is no need to sign up for another E-mail account. You will still be able to use the same E-mail client and keep all your existing E-mail rules/filters. The only difference is that you will receive virtually no spam.

Will I be able to view my deleted messages which have been marked as spam and un-delete them if necessary?

Yes, when you log into your 0Spam.com account, you will see a link at the top called “JunkMail Folder.” This page lists all the deleted messages which you can undelete and send back to your E-mail account, or permanently delete them by selecting which messages you want to delete and pressing the “Delete Selected Messages” button. You may set the number of days that messages are stored in your JunkMail Folder from 1-15 days, or 30, 45, or 60 days. This can be done by going to Settings/Accounts and changing the Quarantine Days setting. Messages older than the number of days you specify are automatically deleted.

What is my POPSpam account? Is it necessary to install it?

Upon signup, a special type of account for each user is created called the POPSpam account. The goal of this feature is to eliminate the very last spams that used to slip into user’s inboxes between the time the checking service last checked their account for spam and the time they check their mail. This feature is not necessary, but is highly suggested. To find out more, visit the POPSpam tutorial.

Is 0Spam.com secure?

Yes, 0Spam.com is just as secure as you checking your E-mail yourself. We use a 128-bit secure socket layer security certificate provided by COMODO. All users of our service are able to login and view their administration pages securely via the secure socket layer connection. In fact, the ability to view messages marked as spam on your administration page is even more secure than viewing regular E-mail in a standard E-mail client because a secure connection is established between your web browser and our servers.

What else can I do to secure my 0Spam.com account?

1. Choose a secure password. You may use uppercase and lowercase letters, numbers, and other characters.
2. Log in using the secure page, which is the default setting.
3. Be sure to log out of your 0Spam.com account by pressing the “Logout” button.
4. If you do not wish to use 0Spam.com any longer, we suggest you delete your account rather than abandoning it.

How do turn off the verification messages and manually approve senders?

1. Login to your 0Spam.com account.
2. Go to “Whitelists.”
3. Scroll down a bit, under the “E-mail Whitelist” section, and above the Save button, you will see a checkbox titled “Automatic approval”. You may uncheck it to not have 0Spam.com send out verification messages.

How do I update my account information or change my password?

1. Login to your 0Spam.com account.
2. Go to “Settings”, and update your settings accordingly.
If you are having login problems, please send us an email.

How do I cancel my account at 0Spam.com?

Click Here to cancel your 0Spam.com account.

How do I add all my current friendly E-mails to my whitelist?

You must first convert your address book into a .csv file which you can later upload to your whitelist. The instructions below tell you how to do this for Outlook Express 5.0, Outlook Express 6.0, Outlook 2002, or Outlook 2000. Click Here for a graphical tutorial on how to add your friendly E-mails to your whitelist.

Outlook Express 5.0

Click File
Highlight Export and Select Address book
Select Text File (Comma Separated Values)
Click Export
Click Browse
Select where you want to save the file. Rename file (save as: Comma Separated Values [.csv]
Click Save
Click Next
Select the fields you want to export
Click Finish

Outlook Express 6.0

In the Address Book, on the File menu, click on Export->Other Address Book.
Select Text File (Comma Separated Values), and then click on Export button.
Click on Browse button and browse to where you would like to have the file saved to such as Desktop and in the file name box, name it such as contacts1 or contacts2 etc. Click on Next button
In the CSV Export window, select the fields you wish to export by clicking on or deselecting fields you may not use or want exported (note: not all fields import, and will need to be verified after completion) Click on Finish. This should complete the export, just need to import now into Webmail.

Outlook 2002

Run Outlook 2002. Click on File in the menu bar and select Import and Export….
In the Import and Export Wizard window, choose Export to a file and click on Next.
On the next screen, select Comma Separated Values (Windows) and click on Next.
Select Contacts as the folder to export from and click on Next.
Click on the Browse button (to select where to save file)
Click Next.
Click Finish.

Outlook 2000

Click File
Select Import and Export
Select Export to a File
Click Next
Click No if you get the AutoArchive option
Select Comma Separated Values (Windows)
Click Next
Select Contacts (to export from)
Click Next
Click Browse button (to select where to save file)
Click OK
Click Next
Click Finish

How do I change the language of the verification E-mails?

When you add your E-mail account to the 0Spam.com service on the administration page, select the language you want for the verification messages sent out. We have a list of all our currently supported languages on the Translated Verification Messages page.

What is “Smart Language Detection” when I select a language when I add my E-mail account?

This is probably the best option to set the language to. 0Spam.com will automatically detect the origin country of the E-mail address and send the appropriate verification E-mail in the proper language. This feature is a great help if you have many international contacts. For example, if someone in France E-mails you, they will most likely speak French, and if someone in Italy E-mails you, they will most likely speak Italian. If you have set the language to “Smart Language Detection” for your E-mail account, then the person in France will be sent a French version of the verification E-mail and the person in Italy will be sent an Italian version..

Why is my E-mail client unable to connect to the POPSpam account?

Problem: Outlook generates the following error when trying to connect to your server:

The host ‘Ospam.com’ could not be found. Please verify that you have entered the server name correctly. Account: ‘ospam.com’, Server: ‘Ospam.com’,
Protocol: POP3, Port: 1111, Secure(SSL): No, Socket Error: 11001, Error Number: 0x800CCC0D.

Resolution: Please use “0Spam.com” and not “OSpam.com” for the mail server.

Why do I sometimes get a spam as the last message of my E-mail?

0Spam.com scans your E-mail account every few minutes (from 5 to 15 minutes) and removes spam. If a spam mail is received after 0Spam.com checks for spam and before you log in to your mail, you may receive one or more spams, depending on how often spam is sent to you. The solution we recently came up with to solve this problem is called the POPSpam virtual POP account, which when connected to by your 0Spam.com username and password via your E-mail client, removes spam from your E-mail account.

You should setup your POPSpam account in your E-mail client so that it checks this account just before it checks your E-mail accounts protected by 0Spam.com. Yahoo users do not currently have the luxury of the POPSpam account unless they use 3rd party software that supports POP accounts. Visit the tutorial to learn how to install your POPSpam account.

Why do I still get many spam messages even after I signed up for 0Spam.com?

This problem is almost always due to improper configuration. Please be sure to follow these steps to ensure that 0Spam.com is working for you:

1. Be sure you added all the E-mail accounts to your 0Spam.com account that you want to protect.
2. Look through your whitelists, maybe you added simple keywords that allow almost any message to pass to your inbox. Remove such keywords.
3. Verify that you have correctly added POPSpam to your E-mail client. Remember to use your 0Spam.com username and password and port 1111.

If you want to see exactly why all messages pass or fail the filters, before you check your E-mail login to your 0Spam.com account and press the “Check All accounts Now For Spam” button. This will give you detailed information as to why each message passes or is deleted as spam.

If you have a Yahoo or GMail E-mail account, we suggest that you turn off the Bulk Mail folder (Spam Filter in the case of GMail) settings, as 0Spam.com does not remove spam from this folder, only spam from your inbox.

How do I select all the JunkMail messages without having to check each one?

To select all the messages displayed on the current page of the JunkMail folder in your administration area, select the checkbox in the upper left corner of the form as shown in the screen shot below:

I want to know more information/stats about the JunkMail folder and the messages it can support?

You may set the length of time the messages remain in the JunkMail folder on the Settings/Accounts page when you log in to your 0Spam.com account. It is located near the top of the page where it says “Allow senders X days to confirm their message before it is deleted from the server.”

Your JunkMail folder can currently support a virtually unlimited number of messages and the total size is also virtually unlimited. The JunkMail folder does not support mails or potential viruses over 250 Kb in size. So, if you receive an E-mail that is larger than this size, which will probably have an attachment, it will not be marked as spam. We change the 250 Kb size from time to time.

Does 0Spam.com save me bandwidth?

Yes and no. Since spam is removed from your inbox and you do not have to download it, it will save bandwidth between you and your inbox. Also, it greatly reduces the time to check your mail. However, since 0Spam.com checks your inbox regularly and downloads and removed spams, it uses bandwidth between your E-mail server and our servers.

What if a message I receive has an invalid To or From header?

Most E-mail that has invalid headers are usually spam, but sometimes no From field is provided in the header. A verification E-mail will not be sent to the sender of such an E-mail because no From address was provided. Instead, the message will be removed to your “Messages Marked as Spam” folder in your 0Spam.com account for you to view and undelete if necessary.

Why don’t you have a “Global Whitelist” feature?

If E-mails were checked to see if they were from someone in a “Global Whitelist”, which would be a large whitelist of every user who has verified themselves once on our system, all a spammer would need to do is to confirm their address once and then he would be able to spam everyone on our service, defeating the purpose of it. We may consider adding a “Global Whitelist” feature in the future, which can be turned on or off by the user.

Will 0Spam.com still work if I check my E-mail very frequently?

Yes, if you use the POPSpam account. If not, then if you start Outlook, Eudora, or some other E-mail client, set it to check for new messages every minute, and leave it on all day, then you will be downloading your mail before 0Spam.com has a chance to remove the spam from your E-mail account. We recommend that you either open your E-mail client, check for messages, and then close it, or change the settings to check for new messages every 10 minutes or more if you do not install the POPSpam account.

Does 0Spam.com work with AOL, Yahoo, GMail, Hotmail, or MSN accounts?

0Spam.com is compatible with Gmail and AOL (via IMAP) E-mail accounts, but not MSN. Hotmail support may be added in the future.

What happens if 0Spam.com goes down for a few minutes, will any mail be lost?

No, 0Spam.com will not check your E-mail account for spam and hence it will not be removed from your account. However, you will not be able to view the messages in the JunkMail Folder if our website goes down.

How often does 0Spam.com run for my E-mail account?

Our system checks for spam and removes it from your E-mail accounts every 5 to 15 minutes automatically.

What is your privacy policy and Terms of Service?

0Spam.com will not read your E-mail or give or sell any content you give to 0Spam.com to any third-party. 0Spam.com does not collect any personal information on the visitors of our website. We neither retain any information, distribute it or allow any one of our partners to collect information about our users. Information you provide us with will be used to provide you with service and to improve the 0Spam.com service. By visiting 0Spam.com and using 0Spam.com’s anti-spam service, you agree to the 0Spam.com Terms of Service. Users are encouraged to read our Privacy Policy