The blog about spam

Today we have submitted a new version of our SpamDrain iOS app for review. In this update you will now be able to empty the Archive and Report sections which is handy if you want to keep your Archive clean. Using the Empty function enables you to keep track on new messages that have been filtered since you last emptied your Archive.

We have also fixed a very annoying bug that occurred for some users when signing up. They got stuck in the last step after having the error message “This field is required” presented. We finally managed to identify the root cause for this one.

Another change with this update is concerning Apple’s In App Purchase. For reasons unknown to us, Apple no longer allow services like SpamDrain to use their auto-renewable subscriptions. Instead we need to switch to non-renewing subscriptions. This means that you need to renew manually before the subscription ends. It’s not that big a deal since most of our users pay using our web page where it already works like this. But for our monthly subscribers that are used to getting their subscription renewed every month, there will be a change. We ask for your understanding – this is totally out of our control and is due to regulations from Apple.

If you like you can always renew your subscription by logging on to our web page: https://app.spamdrain.net and click the $ icon in the upper right corner.

If you pay your subscription through our web page, you do not need to worry about this change. It only concerns customers who use In App Purchase from within our app.

As we said in earlier post we will donate SEK 0.01 for every blocked spam during the charity event Musikhjälpen for girls’ right to go to school. The event has now come to an end and our spam counter stopped at 1,331,461 blocked spam. This results in a donation of SEK 13,314.61.
Hopefully it will give more girls the right to go to school. The entire event brought in over SEK 18 million (about USD 2.6 million).
Thank you all customers for choosing SpamDrain as your primary filtering service.
Merry Christmas to you all!

This week the charity event Musikhjälpen is being held in Göteborg, Sweden. Swedish Radio and Swedish Television run the event and raise money for children’s rights under the parole “All girls have the right to go to school”.

SpamDrain has once again decided to donate 1 öre (0,01 SEK) for each spam we block during the week of the event. A normal week we block about 1 300 000 spam.

Amount to be donated (now final):

counter will stop at 2011-12-18 when Musikhjälpen ends.

Remember, all girls have the right to education!

More info: www.musikhjalpen.se (Swedish).

We have now finished the job with version 1.7 of our SpamDrain app for iOS and got it approved by Apple. In this new version you will be able to update your filtering settings, add new addresses for filtering and see the status of the filtering. For example you may now see if SpamDrain is having trouble logging in or connecting to your provider’s servers. These features have been available for some time on our web site but we also thought we wanted to provide it in our mobile apps, starting with iOS.

Please rate us – again

We also want to thank you all for your great reviews we are receiving, both in App Store and in Android Market. This really motivate us to keep up the work to stop spam from reaching your iPhones, Androids or other phones and computers.

We would like to ask you to rate the new version in App Store – even if you already have done so. Since the rating to some extent are reset when you release a new version we really need your help to keep our great rating up. Thanks!

A while ago we modified our regular SpamDrain subscription slightly. You may now filter up to five addresses in a SpamDrain account (for only €9.99 or $14.99 / year and address) compared to single address filtering as before. This simplifies for all of you beloved customers who want to filter a couple of extra addresses since you do not need to manage separate logins to different SpamDrain accounts but may instead handle all filtering with one login to our site and iPhone and Android apps.

As before you may also choose SpamDrain+. With SpamDrain+ you may add multiple users, filter domains and utilize our personal support. For more info please visit http://spamdrain.net/en/spamdrain-plus

By the way…talking about our apps – we will shortly update our iPhone app so you can view filtering status for all your addresses and update your filtering settings. Stay tuned.

We are experiencing delays in the delivery of domain filtered emails for one of our servers at the moment. This doesn’t affect all emails and only emails sent to domain filtered address, not POP3/IMAP filtered ones.
We are currently working on setting up new servers and fixing the faulty one and expect it to be solved later today. We regret the inconvenience.

Update: We have now solved this and moved traffic to new servers, replacing the faulty one. There should no more delays and all delayed messages should now have been delivered.

Today we have some good news for all our customers who filter their domain through SpamDrain. You will now be able to manage aliases to filtered addresses directly on the web. There is no extra cost for adding aliases but they must be mapped to one or several filtered addresses. You can also have aliases from one domain pointing to addresses in another one .

We have also improved domain handling so it should be easier to add and manage your domain filtering. You can now also search for both filtered addresses and aliases in the domains page. This feature is also available in the users page.

Please note that all changes made to the domain filtering will take up to five minutes before they propagate to all servers.

Today we have made it easier for you to share SpamDrain and for you to get something out of it. Well, you probably already know that if everyone was using a great spam filter, sending spam wouldn’t pay off and the internet would be a much better and happier place. Help us making the world spam free by inviting your friends and colleagues to join SpamDrain and we will reward you with free months.

We have added a new Sharing page  where you can send invites or share SpamDrain in your social networks, blogs, web pages etc. Simply Log in to your SpamDrain account and hit the Share icon in the upper right corner.

For every paying new filtered address you generate, we will add extra months to your subscription – depending on how many addresses you currently filter. For example, if you filter one address today, you will receive three free months for every new paying filtered address you generate. If you filter two addresses you will receive 1.5 free months for every new filtered address.

The more addresses your friends filter the more free months you receive. Isn’t that great?

If you are generating great volumes you will have the opportunity to join our reseller program instead and start earning real money.

So, start sharing today and make the world a bit more spam free.

Other new features in this update

• Messages that you have retrieved from the archive can now be displayed and re-delivered.
• Clearer indication when a message is blocked due to blacklisted sender.
• Remove entries from blacklist.
• You may now extend your subscription even when there is more than a year left.

Our support will be closed for the summer holidays starting at 18 July 2011 and re-opens again 15 August 2011. We will answer your e-mails as usual during the working days, but the phone support will be closed.

Have a nice summer!

For some time we have working on a new type of filter which blocks newsletters and marketing emails. We have being testing it for a while we are really happy with the progress. So today we tell you a little bit more about how it works. Really soon we will enable new functionality in our iPhone, Android and web apps, enabling you to control this filter. (We actually updated our web site today already)

First, some background. As you know you can report spam that SpamDrain has failed to block. This is done in our mobile apps or by logging on to our web site. We have noticed that different users have different definitions of spam. The most obvious definition might be “spam is everything I don’t want in my inbox” (even messages you have accepted to receive but don’t take the time to unsubscribe to). However, there is a problem with this definition. Some people want coupon offers from their local store and some do not want them. With viagra mail it’s much simpler – nobody wants that crap.

We have therefore chosen to introduce this new filter which identifies newsletters and marketing emails and put them in your Archive marked as “Newsletters”. These emails are always listed in your daily/weekly/monthly SpamDrain report so you never have to worry about missing important offers. Of course, you will be able to retrieve/release these blocked message as usual. When retrieving blocked messages from the Archive, SpamDrain will learn not to block similar messages again. You can also turn this filter entirely off.

To train our filters to become even more efficient, we appreciate if you our users could give us a little help when retrieving a message: You will now be asked to classify the message. By helping us deciding why you are retrieving a specific message you will help improving the overall filtering accuracy. The choice you will be given is:

You will get the same question when retrieving a message in the mobile apps.

We hope you will like these improvements – and hey, if you don’t – you can always turn the newsletter filter off. We hope you will enjoy receiving even less spam in the future. Please let us know what you think about these updates.

Please let us know what you think about these updates.

More for more information about the newsletter filter and retrieval of messages from the Archive.