My Computer Behaves Strangely

[dusty]

I highly recommend Malwarebytes. I have run the premium version on my three computers for years. My license is lifetime. Not sure if it is still that way. I also run the premium version on my Android phone.

I also run ESET NOD32 Antivirus on my three computers. It is the paid premium version. I buy the license for multiple computers and multiple years so it makes it very cheap.

They both find things and I have never had a problem. I think the biggest thing is don't open any attachments in junk email no matter how curious you may be. Just mark the email as junk and then delete it.

All that is very good advice. I too have Malwarebytes but I use Trend Micro Maximum in tandem with it. Both have served me well for years. I haven't found all the good deals that are reported here but I am still very pleased.

Some of my junk mail offers great temptations but I do resist opening them. Later I receive what I have declared junk mail; almost everyday from someone who identifies themselves as Microsoft. They report that my email is about to be shut down and I need to call to avoid that. I
have been told that the closure process is underway and shutdown is eminent about a half dozen times. So far, so good.

Well, you don't get your email from Microsoft according to what you post here so why would anyone believe that? I just mark them as junk and don't get them again.

You might not have been responding to my comments but...I think Microsoft has something to do with my email. What is Microsoft Outlook?

[jsburger]

All that is very good advice. I too have Malwarebytes but I use Trend Micro Maximum in tandem with it. Both have served me well for years. I haven't found all the good deals that are reported here but I am still very pleased.

Some of my junk mail offers great temptations but I do resist opening them. Later I receive what I have declared junk mail; almost everyday from someone who identifies themselves as Microsoft. They report that my email is about to be shut down and I need to call to avoid that. I
have been told that the closure process is underway and shutdown is eminent about a half dozen times. So far, so good.

Well, you don't get your email from Microsoft according to what you post here so why would anyone believe that? I just mark them as junk and don't get them again.

You might not have been responding to my comments but...I think Microsoft has something to do with my email. What is Microsoft Outlook?

Do you not get your email from hotmail? That is not microsoft.com so Microsoft has nothing to do with the email you receive. I also run Outlook but my email provider is xmission.com and has been since 1992. Microsoft has nothing to do with the reception of my email. Outlook just allows me to read it as it does for you. By the same token if I used Thunderbird it does not mean that mozilla.com has anything to do with the email I receive.

I don't get anything from someone pretending to be Microsoft (if I did I would just delete it) but I do get emails from strange places claiming my email account is going to be suspend because of abuse or some other BS and I must immediately click on this link to submit my life's history to prevent suspension.

A sure indication is when you hover over a link in the email and the URL is different than the what the URL says it is.

[dusty]

Well, you don't get your email from Microsoft according to what you post here so why would anyone believe that? I just mark them as junk and don't get them again.

You might not have been responding to my comments but...I think Microsoft has something to do with my email. What is Microsoft Outlook?

Do you not get your email from hotmail? That is not microsoft.com so Microsoft has nothing to do with the email you receive. I also run Outlook but my email provider is xmission.com and has been since 1992. Microsoft has nothing to do with the reception of my email. Outlook just allows me to read it as it does for you. By the same token if I used Thunderbird it does not mean that mozilla.com has anything to do with the email I receive.

I don't get anything from someone pretending to be Microsoft (if I did I would just delete it) but I do get emails from strange places claiming my email account is going to be suspend because of abuse or some other BS and I must immediately click on this link to submit my life's history to prevent suspension.

A sure indication is when you hover over a link in the email and the URL is different than the what the URL says it is.

Yes, John. Microsoft is not my email provider. The provider is Century Link. Outlook is my mail handler but who decides which email is legit and which is junk?

A statement from Google but you can't always trust Google either.

Why are all my Outlook emails going to junk?
Adding a Sender to the Safe Sender List. Mail that is screened by Outlook is diverted to a Junk E-mail folder. Mail that is filtered and identified as SPAM by SPAM SOAP is identified by a message sent to your mailbox from SPAM SOAP. If mail is going to the Junk E-mail folder open your Junk E-mail folder.

SPAM SOAP = McAfee ?????

[jsburger]

You might not have been responding to my comments but...I think Microsoft has something to do with my email. What is Microsoft Outlook?

Do you not get your email from hotmail? That is not microsoft.com so Microsoft has nothing to do with the email you receive. I also run Outlook but my email provider is xmission.com and has been since 1992. Microsoft has nothing to do with the reception of my email. Outlook just allows me to read it as it does for you. By the same token if I used Thunderbird it does not mean that mozilla.com has anything to do with the email I receive.

I don't get anything from someone pretending to be Microsoft (if I did I would just delete it) but I do get emails from strange places claiming my email account is going to be suspend because of abuse or some other BS and I must immediately click on this link to submit my life's history to prevent suspension.

A sure indication is when you hover over a link in the email and the URL is different than the what the URL says it is.

Yes, John. Microsoft is not my email provider. The provider is Century Link. Outlook is my mail handler but who decides which email is legit and which is junk?

A statement from Google but you can't always trust Google either.

Why are all my Outlook emails going to junk?
Adding a Sender to the Safe Sender List. Mail that is screened by Outlook is diverted to a Junk E-mail folder. Mail that is filtered and identified as SPAM by SPAM SOAP is identified by a message sent to your mailbox from SPAM SOAP. If mail is going to the Junk E-mail folder open your Junk E-mail folder.

SPAM SOAP = McAfee ?????

OK, your internet provider is Century Link. That is how you connect to the internet. Your email comes from hotlink (dustywoodworker@hotmail.com). Century Link has nothing to do with the email you receive, they just pass it all on to you. If you have a POP account with hotmail then ALL of your email is downloaded to your local computer and Outlook is sending things to junk or wherever depending on how you have configured Outlook.

If you have an IMAP account with hotmail then all your mail stays on hotmail's server and is not downloaded to your local computer. In that case hotmail may (or may not, I don't use hotmail) have options to filter mail so you never see it even in your junk folder. However, if hotmail lets the particular mail through Outlook will filter it based on your Outlook configuration.

It has nothing to do with Microsoft doing things. It has to do with how you have configured Outlook.

My email provider, xmission.com, allows me to log on to their webmail and read all my email. There I can blacklist repeat emails so I never see them in Outlook on my local computer.

SPAM SOAP = McAfee ????? Maybe that is the problem!!! That configuration may be contributing to the problem. Lower the level of the spam filtering in McAfee. Personally, I would not use that program.

[dusty]

An interesting read: https://support.office.com/en-us/articl ... b9b05af680

Looks to me as though MS gets involved somewhere, at least for me.

[john_001]

+1 for Malwarebytes. It was recommended by my ISP (Comcast).

Another thing to take a look at is Mailwasher. It downloads only the headers and displays the sender, subject and date, and marks everything as good or spam. It learns as you use it, you can create white-lists and override its choices before processing email and sending it on to your email client. It can display the first x lines of an email, but it only shows the code for links and pictures (to thwart built-in "phone-home" codes).