Spam-Filtering Softwares
Spam — unsolicited bulk and commercial e-mail — may be killing e-mail. Spam is causing people to cancel their Internet accounts (or at least stop reading their e-mail) because e-mail has become an unpleasant waste of time. E-mail has also become unreliable because spam filters sometimes accidentally throw away good messages with the spam. Spam wastes thousands of hours of your time, as you skim Subject lines and press the Delete key, trying to guess which messages aren’t even worth opening.
Luckily, you can do something about spam. Here are a few spam-filtering programs that run under Windows and trap spam even before your e-mail program receives it.
Many of these programs act as proxy servers —programs that stand between you and the Internet (in this case, between your e-mail program and your ISP’s mail server). Instead of your e-mail program getting the mail from the mail server directly, the spam filter program gets your messages from the mail server and throws out most of the spam, and then your e-mail program gets your messages from your spam filter program. Yes, it’s an extra step, but lots of spam can disappear along the way.
Below list contains some popular and effective spam-filtering programs you can install on Windows, UNIX, or Linux systems or on the Mac.
Works with Web mail accounts, such as Hotmail, MSN, and Yahoo! Mail, and with AOL. Adds Bayesian filtering and checks messages against lists of known spam. Free for one computer with one account.
POP accounts only; adds Bayesian filter. Freeware.
POP, IMAP, Hotmail, Desktop and MSN accounts; adds Bayesian filtering.
Free and paid versions. Both support POP accounts with Bayesian filtering and Web-based blacklists. Paid version supports Hotmail and MSN accounts.
Cross-platform (but you have to install Perl), open source freeware using Bayesian filtering and whitelists.
POP accounts only. Based on SpamAssassin (described in Chapter 13). Includes Bayesian filtering.
Includes virus-checking; for POP accounts only. Uses whitelisting and Bayesian filters and has an online database of spam that is updated hourly.
Open source implementation of Bayesian filtering for POP and IMAP accounts. Available for Windows, UNIX/ Linux, and the Mac.
For POP accounts only.
Adds free Bayesian filtering for POP accounts.
Uses Bayesian filters, whitelists, and updates from community database of spam messages. Works with Outlook, Outlook Express, Eudora, IncrediMail, and Web-based Hotmail and MSN.
Freeware for POP and IMAP accounts only. Uses Bayesian filtering and blocking (DNSBL).
Open source, free Bayesian filtering for Unix/Linux and Mac OS X.
For POP accounts. Works with AOL, Hotmail, MSN, and Yahoo! Mail by bundling Web2POP utility. Uses Bayesian filters, challenge e-mails, whitelists, and blacklists
