How do I stop unwelcome spam of an unpleasant type?

For maybe a year now I've been receiving emails relating to male prowess! (and how to fix it). I don't open them and put them into the O.E. blocked senders list but they still keep coming. I thought if I ignored them they'd go away but haven't. Even the ones I recognise as having been blocked previously in O.E. continue to arrive. At this stage I'm fed up with them and had a read of a thread on AAM which recommended MailWasher. My email address is @eircom.net even though I've been with Utv for years now.

I also have an email account with mail2web.com (for checking emails when away which I seldom use) and I noticed yesterday there was very little of this spam in that Inbox. They even arrive into the Deleted emails folder. Even worse a recent one looked as if I had sent it. Any advice would be appreciated.

The easiest option could well be to change your email address. I've had to do this in the past changing from @oceanfree.net and @iolfree.ie email accounts. I've changed to Hotmail and Gmail and nothing comes through to these.

Over a few weeks I took note of which proper email that I had received and then one by one I logged onto their websites and updated my details with the new email address. It was all pretty straight forward in the end.

Anti-spam programs are not 100% effective.

I'd agree the best way is to change to a new address.

Also, use one address for trusted friends and another when buying stuff or signing up for services.

Ideally, a different one for each company you deal with, so when you do get spam, you'll know who sold your e-mail address. Also, try not to give your e-mail address when checking in at hotels or signing up for a cellphone contract etc. Some people are just chancing their arms demanding it.

Try and make the addresses difficult for a computer to guess. Some spammers make lists based on all the common names.

Depending on who your ISP is, you may be able to have multiple addresses and change them as the need arises.

Redirect your email to a gmail account, and then download what Gmail lets though. I'd just change my email address.

I'd agree. Setup a Gmail account.
It has an option to "Get mail from other accounts" under settings.

That way you will still receive mail from any other accounts which Gmail will retrieve and filter.

My mail is processed in this way and then delivered to my blackberry & i receive zero spam.

Thanks everyone for your responses and advice. I appreciate what you've said but I'm not keen to change my email address which is used purely for personal contacts.

As far as I can see to use Gmail I would have to set up and account with Google first - is this correct? Is there any difference between getting someone to recommend me for Gmail or is it all the same which way I would do it? I find making up passwords for different accounts a bit of a pain. It is good to know that if I did go with Gmail I can get mail from other accounts.

In the meantime I'm giving MailWasher a try - even 90% would be Ok. One aspect of MailW that I like is being able to bounce back the unwanted emails - though I'm not sure exactly what that entails. Thanks again.

Don't bounce unwanted mails - that confirms your address is 'real' and gets it propagated further around the net.

The best solution (free) is gmail

Otherwise, buy a domain name, and a good, online mail scanning / washing service, that will stop all spam and viruses 'in the cloud' and stop them ever getting to your inbox.