How to use VOLstate's spam and virus control center

Where do I start?

Most people will have everything they need on the "home" page of the spam and virus control center.  From this page you can set the aggressiveness of the filter, add addresses to the "accept and reject" list, and decide what you want to do with messages in your filter.

What difference does the "Filtering Aggressiveness" setting make?

The "Filtering Aggressiveness" setting allows you to set how strict or lenient you want your filter to be.  We recommend you start with the filter at its default setting, right in the middle.  If you find that too much spam is getting through you can raise the level up and it will stop more spam.  Please be aware that the higher you set your filter aggressiveness the more likely the filter is to catch and trap legitimate email.  Any trapped email is captured for you to review or reject on this page. 

How does the "Accept and Reject" list work?

The accept and reject list does just that,  It allows you to "accept" mail and have it delivered to your email box as usual, or "reject" mail and it will be removed from your trap and thrown away.  If you always want to get a particular message from a certain sender, add the email to the "always accept message from" list and our spam filter will always let that message through to you.  If you add an email address to the "always reject message from" list, the filter will always reject a message from that address.

Do I have to go through each individual mail message and mark it?

No, you don't.  Just click the red "x" to mark all messages on the screen as spam and click "submit changes" and that will clear those spam messages from your trap.  On the other hand, if there are messages you want to keep, select "accept message" for that particular message and click "submit changes".  This will deliver the message to your mailbox.

I see other options to select for the messages, what do they do?

• Accept Message - Will deliver the message to your mailbox.
• Reject Message - Removes the message from your filter and adds information about the message to our filters database to help it block future spam.
• Silently Discard -  Removes the message from your filter without telling the filter anything about the message.
• Black list Sender - Adds that sender of that email to your blacklist and rejects messages from that email address from that point on.
• White list Sender - Adds the sender of that email to your whitelist and accepts messages from that sender from that point on.
• Black list Domain - Adds the domain from that senders email address to your blacklist and rejects all further email from that domain.  (A domain is the part after the "@" in and email address.  For example, in the address help@volstate.net, "volstate.net" is the domain).
• White list Domain - Adds the domain from that sender's email address to your whitelist and accepts all further email from that domain.  (A domain is the part after the "@" in an email address.  For example, in the address help@volsate.net, "volstate.net" is the domain).
• Black list Host - Adds the host that the email was sent from to your blacklist.  It rejects everything from the sender's mail server.  (For example, if you were to black list the host of help@volstate.net you would be blocking any email from the volstate.net mail server).
• White list Host - Adds the host that the email was sent from to your white list.  It accepts everything from the sender's mail server.  (For example, if you were to white list the host of help@volstate.net you would be accepting all email from anyone that uses volstate.net's mail server).

Which option should I use to get rid of spam or junk email?

"Reject message" is the best option.  We recommend that you utilize the red "X" to reject all after scanning the subjects of your blocked email.

I don't want to do any of this, is that a problem?

Nope.  Just ignore it.  We will auto-delete messages in your spam trap that are older than 14 days every day.  Most people will "tune" their spam trap at first and after they are comfortable with the settings forget about it.  Just keep in mind that it is there and if you ever suspect that a message did not get through you can always log in and check your spam trap to see if it has been blocked by the filter.