My Earthlink mail is blocked on all accounts now, and what gets through is what is listed in my online address book. I had one that was open for a while, but the spam started piling in. That account address had a mix of numbers and letters that were geared to not fit a pattern that an address generator might think of.
I have a couple of friends, however, who can't get it through their heads that by hitting CC: and forwarding that last funny email to everyone in their address book is a bad idea. At least use BCC if you're doing that. CC leaves the addresses in plain sight, and all it takes is someone posting this somewhere, addresses and all, to leave them blowing in the virtual wind for a bot to harvest.
I would like to pay less for my internet service, but if I change, all of my email stops. I need to gradually transition from the accounts I'm using now to one of the free ones that filters well, like Yahoo, or to one like Google's gmail that I can set up a filter on (like the MailWasher--I've never used it--if someone would describe more about how it works I'd appreciate it). If I have my email forwarded for a while, I don't know if this will kick out the spam filtering features at Earthlink. I don't want the spam, just the regular mail forwarded. Has anyone used their IP forwarding feature and what went through?