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RSS feedsIf you use email on a regular basis, you'll have encountered spam, the curse of the email-literate world; it's pretty much a fact of life these days. The problem is not merely that spam clogs up your inbox, but that it can be time-consuming to delete and, in some cases, offensive.
Worst of all, spam can also pose a security threat to your PC as it is often used to spread viruses. The recent outbreak of the MyDoom virus, which uses an infected email attachment to spread malicious virus code, is a case in point.
Thankfully, there's plenty of software out there to help eliminate spam from our PCs and we've put six packages to the test to see just how much junk they will successfully keep out of your inbox.
We've also assessed each on ease of use and the amount of time you'll still have to spend sorting out the inevitable mistakes when your anti-spam software accidentally files a message from Auntie Maud along with emails touting a better rate on your mortgage.
Audiotrieve InBoxer
InBoxer is a simple package to install but only works with Microsoft Outlook. The software automatically scans mail as it arrives and decides if it's spam or legitimate email by referring to its built-in list of recognised 'good' and 'bad' messages. This means there is no need to change any of the settings in your email application.
The quick setup routine is a breeze and, when it's done, you'll find two new folders labelled InBoxer Blocked and InBoxer Review in your Outlook folder menu.
Any message that InBoxer recognises as spam is filed in the Blocked folder; any dubious messages it's not entirely sure about find their way into the Review folder. You can then review the contents of this folder and rescue those emails that aren't spam or block those that are.
InBoxer learns as it goes and if a piece of spam does appear in your inbox, just click the Block button on the toolbar and the application will remember that this is spam.
There are also whitelist and blacklist features so you can mark email addresses or domain names as good or bad. Any email address or domain in the whitelist will be allowed through the InBoxer filter at all times, while any in the blacklist will be blocked.
This application is simple to use and detected more spam than any of the other applications on test here. If you use Outlook as your email client, it's the best solution we found and good value for money too.
Price: $28 (about £15)
Contact: www.inboxer.com
Spam detected: 99 per cent
CloudMark SpamNet
Like InBoxer, CloudMark's SpamNet will only work with certain email applications - in this case Outlook or Outlook Express. Instead of using lots of complicated rules, it compares the details of the mail you receive against known spam messages stored on the central SpamNet blocklist.
Installation is simple and SpamNet then adds a couple of extra buttons to your email application so you can block a message as spam or unblock it. Once again, you can compile a list of permitted senders that you'll always accept email from.
SpamNet's neatest feature, though, is that it operates as a community of spam blockers. When you block a message, details are sent to SpamNet to be added to the central blocklist. The more messages you correctly identify the more trusted your decisions become, so it's hard for people to maliciously block messages because they're too lazy, for example, to unsubscribe from a mailing list.
SpamNet is very easy to use and pretty accurate - it didn't identify any valid messages as spam in our tests. The downsides are that it only works with Outlook and Outlook Express and, after the trial period, you have to pay $4 (about £2) a month to carry on using it.
Price: $4 (about £2) a month
Contact: www.cloudmark.com
Spam detected: 97 per cent
FireTrust MailWasher Pro
MailWasher Pro works with any email application and will even filter messages in a Hotmail webmail account for you. Installation is fairly straightforward and doesn't involve making alterations to the settings of your email application, although you will have to change the way you check your mail.
You'll need to check all your incoming emails with MailWasher, which marks junk messages for deletion. You then review this list of messages to make sure nothing you want to keep will be removed, and after this click on Process Mail to clean your mailbox. You then use your normal email application to fetch the remaining messages. It sounds more fiddly than it actually is, but it's certainly not going to suit everyone.
On the plus side, it detected the second highest amount of spam in our tests and once you've marked mail from a friend, it'll never stop their mail again. If you use any email application other than Outlook or Outlook Express, it's certainly well worth a look but if you check your email every 10 minutes, you may quickly tire of the multi-stage process.
Price: $30 (about £16)
Contact: www.firetrust.com
Spam detected: 99 per cent
McAfee SpamKiller 2004
McAfee SpamKiller has been substantially updated since its last incarnation. The new 2004 version installs easily and regularly downloads updates and new spam filtering rules from the internet for you. An added bonus is that it works with any email application.
You'll need to fiddle around with the settings in your email application so that it collects mail through SpamKiller. Once that's done, the pragramme takes over fetching mail from your internet service provider and sorting out what's junk and what's not. It even generates a pie chart on the main screen showing what sort of junk you're receiving.
All of this happens automatically if you're using Outlook Express but not if you're using Outlook 2002. SpamKiller was quite accurate at identifying spam, although it also caught quite a few legitimate messages too, leaving you to tinker a bit in the Blocked mail screen to retrieve them.
While this may be annoying, SpamKiller was still one of the better performing applications on test, with a lot less fiddling around each time you check your mail than with MailWasher Pro, for instance. At only £20 for the download, it's good value too.
Price: £30 (£20 to download)
Contact: http://uk.mcafee.com
Spam detected: 94 per cent
Stata Labs SAProxyPro
SAProxyPro is based on an anti-spam application called SpamAssassin, which is used by many companies and internet providers to filter email. The version we tested works with any email application.
Installation is quite simple, although you do have to change the settings of your email application for the filtering to work. There's a step-by-step video guide to help you through the process. You'll also have to set up a secondary filter in your email application, because while SAProxyPro adds "*****SPAM*****" to the subject line of any email it recognises as spam, they still end up in your inbox.
There's a wide range of settings on offer. You can block messages containing certain words, or originating from certain websites, or even those in certain languages. You can also opt to have spam emails turned into email attachments, so all you see is a report showing its spam rating rather than the whole email.
Performance, though, wasn't that great with the default settings. Admittedly, simply blocking any email containing the words 'Paris Hilton' might well have improved things considerably, but in our tests it wasn't as good at weeding out spam as some of the competition.
Price: $30 (about £16)
Contact: www.statalabs.com
Spam detected: 78 per cent
Norton AntiSpam
Norton's spam filter can either be bought alone or as part of the Norton Internet Security package, which also includes a firewall, privacy protection, antivirus software and parental controls, which certainly makes it appear to be pretty good value for money.
Installation is simple and if your computer is used by more than one person, each user can have their own, personalised settings. It works with any email application and if you're using Outlook, it adds extra buttons to the toolbar so you can mark messages as spam or legitimate mail and empty the junk mail folder. Any recognised spam messages are automatically moved to the spam folder, and the subject line is also modified.
Unfortunately, performance was bottom of the heap in our tests, with just under 70 per cent of spam correctly identified, although very few real messages were also marked as junk. Even so, this meant a lot of clicking to clear the remaining spam out of the inbox. At this point in testing, our system started to slow, taking several seconds just to react when we clicked on a message.
Marking messages as spam was also very slow, as was emptying the spam folder. This was the only application we encountered this problem with and if you receive large volumes of email, this could be a real pain.
On the positive side, if you buy the bundle, you'll receive all those other PC security essentials for a pretty good price. When it comes to spam filtering, however, the Norton solution just didn't impress.
Price: £30 (£55 for Suite)
Contact: www.symantec.com
Spam detected: 70 per cent
Dump the junk
When it comes to spam filtering, what really matters is that the software you choose gets rid of junk email and makes as few mistakes as possible. In addition, putting those mistakes right shouldn't mean you have to wade through all the junk mail again.
If you're one of the many people who uses Outlook Express, CloudMark's SpamNet is well worth trying out. Be warned, though, that at the time of writing this was only available as a pre-release version. In our tests one product really stood out above the rest and is a must-have for users of Outlook.
Because it's simple to install, made very few mistakes and learns from the emails you mark as spam or otherwise, Audiotrieve's InBoxer gets our Best on Test award. It's a great application with no complicated rules and doesn't require you to change the settings of your email application to use it.
Spam and the law
At the end of last year, and after lengthy debate, the UK and many other countries finally adopted laws designed to regulate the distribution of junk mail. But what does this legislation actually mean?
Broadly speaking, unsolicited mail can only be sent to the personal email addresses of someone who has opted in to a mailing list. Your work email address, however, is not covered.
Furthermore, as long as a company provides a link to allow you to unsubscribe from a mailing list, it doesn't actually need your permission to send messages if you have an existing relationship with them. And that relationship could be something as trivial as phoning up and asking for a brochure.
If the law is broken it can take up to a year for a prosecution and the maximum fine for a UK company would only be about £5,000. European laws don't apply to spam originating in the US, where the onus is on you to opt out when you receive junk mail.
To report spam from UK firms, contact the office of the Information Commissioner.
Hotmail and spam
Hotmail is the most widely used webmail service in the world, which makes it a prime target for the companies that send spam. After lots of dithering, Hotmail now has reasonable spam protection and you can opt for different levels of protection.
The best option for many is probably to allow only mail from people on your Safe list or in your address book. Choose the Exclusive option from the Hotmail options screen and the first message you receive from any person who's not on the list will end up in your junk folder. With two clicks of the mouse you can allow all future mail from them to go to your inbox.
You can also opt for two other levels of filtering, depending on how much junk you receive and even import a list of contacts from your PC. Even so, don't expect the results to be quite as effective as running an application like InBoxer on your PC, which learns as it goes along.
Do it for free
While there's lots of cheap spam filtering software on the market, there are ways you can cut down on the amount of junk that appears in your inbox that don't involve spending a bean.
One option is to use the rules in your email application to set up a whitelist of senders you're prepared to receive email from. The obvious place to keep such a list is in your address book.
In Outlook, you can easily set up a rule to check if the sender of a message is in your address book. You can then set Outlook to move the message to a folder for trusted emails or to move messages to a spam folder if they're not from someone in your address book.
You can easily add messages from people you trust to the address book by right-clicking on their email address and choosing Add to Contacts, so that they'll be on your whitelist the next time they send you a message.
See also:
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