There is a program that is based on something called SpamAssassin which is used in Linux. IIRC, it is called SpamBlocker. This little thing can be trained and can block email with rules. It is one of the best non-server-based-email-filtering-service programs I have seen and I have abunch of clients and friends who swear by it.

Basicly, with OE you can block with some message rules (and they can be pretty sophisitcated) EXCEPT for hotmail. The problem with OE picking up hotmail is that you need to block stuff at hotmail's server and only the paid accounts are allowed a large number of user blocks. The way around that (freely) is to set the account to exclusive mode, then go online and web pickup for awhile until you have told it who to allow to send you email.

I will say one set of things here:

90% of the porn I get and the offensive stuff, tends to come from Yahoo! email addresses-- unfortunately, they relay a lot of email that needs to get blocked as far as many folks are concerned. So, in my Netscape 7.0.2 I use domain block rules-- basicly, if sender contains @yahoo.com or @yahoo.jp (japan) or @yahoo.uk (united kingdom) or @yahoo.ru the email gets moved to the trash folder and when Netscape exits it politely empties it. You can do something similar in OE with message rules by telling it to domain block(give it the @ and the part after, it DOES do a domain block this way).

The problem with browser or email client based blocks or filters is that they often have to be duplicated for each account. By running all email through a separate program like SpamBlocker you can use one rule set and filter all email at the expense of waiting while it filters it all for you (kinda like waiting for Norton Antivirus to scan anything with an attachment that you open, but longer cuz it has to look at every message instead of just those with attachments).

John Danielson.