Perhaps it shows how ubiquitous the concept of unsolicited electronic communications is that we didn’t even have to define the word \u201cspam\u201d in the title of this article.\u00a0 In the 90’s it was common to explain to the reader that no, we didn’t mean the canned meat.\u00a0 Now it’s arguable that fewer people even know of that definition.<\/p>\n
There is a entire cottage industry of anti-spam products out there.\u00a0 This type of software lends itself very well to factual, objective analysis.\u00a0 It is easily measurable how much it lets through that it should, and how much it doesn’t let through that it shouldn’t.\u00a0 There are other considerations, of course, so let’s go through a brief listing of some of the most frequently mentioned anti-spam software packages out there.<\/p>\n
Cloudmark Desktop<\/p>\n <\/strong>We’ll start with the worst part about this package: not only is it fairly expensive, but it must be renewed annually.\u00a0 For a good package this can be seen as fair, given that the filters for a quality spam filter must keep rapid pace with the times, and all reports say that Cloudmark<\/a> does exactly that.\u00a0 It’s easy to use with its drag and drop methods, easy on your system, and almost never blocks legitimate mail, though some spam does make it through on occasion.\u00a0 It uses ongoing feedback from a community of more than a million users to identify spam.<\/p>\n Spamfighter<\/strong><\/p>\n Spamfighter<\/a> gets high marks across the board from its user community.\u00a0 It is fantastic on both sides of the spam war, letting in almost none and blocking almost no real mail.\u00a0 It functions on the network level, meaning that it requires no training and is effective right out of the gate.\u00a0 The price of \u201cfree\u201d is hard to beat, though that software (ironically?) places ads in outgoing email.\u00a0 Upgrading to Spamfighter Pro for $30\/year takes care of that.<\/p>\n