Two days ago my level of spam went through the roof (from about 5 messages per day to 80).
I thought it may be due to Blue Frog (an ethical spam solution) working against me rather than for me. This turned out to be the case. The Blue Frog website (operated by Blue Security) has been down for 48 hours. The homepage came back online today and states:
Blue Security's servers are currently under attack.
Our staff is working around the clock to restore normal operation as soon as possible.
We are extremely happy to see the overwhelming level of support and global presence the Blue Community is showing.
Thank you for your patience!
Will this stop me using Blue Frog? No. Dealing ethically with spam (opting out of spam email at the source) seems like a good idea and possibly part of the long-term solution to stopping spam.
I will continue to submit by spam emails to Blue Frog but now I need to search (again) for a good free spam filter to use in conjunction with Blue Frog. If I discover one, I will post about it here and add it to my recommended programs list.
Grrr.
Update 1
6 May 2006 – The Blue Frog came back online yesterday. My spam has returned to normal levels. I recommend joining the Blue Frog community in order to reduce your spam.
Update 2
5 January 2007 – Blue Frog did not actually last much longer after the attack in May 2006. It buckled under severe pressure from the spammers. It seems that the spammers have more firepower than previously believed.
For a while, I used Spamihilator which is an effective and free spam filter. However, these days I use Thunderbird for my email and it is superb. There are a few small things that I miss from Outlook, but most of these can be fixed with Thunderbird extensions.