Anti-spam software

Anti-spam software comparison chart for 2023

Anti-spam software explained

Untamed, spam can take over your inbox, making it hard to locate important messages. Worse, it can contain offensive material or infect your computer with dangerous viruses or spyware.

Although internet service providers go to great lengths to eliminate spam before it reaches your inbox, plenty still slips through. If you don’t want your inbox to become a mess of junk, anti-spam software is essential.

Anti-spam software and your email

Your choice of anti-spam software will, to some extent, be determined by how you send and receive email. If the anti-spam software can’t hook into your preferred email software or service, then it will be unable to analyze your emails – and useless.

Most anti-spam software will work with major email software, like Microsoft Outlook and Outlook Express. However, if you access your email through a web-based service (like Hotmail, Yahoo Mail or Google Mail), you may have a more restricted choice.

Virtually all email services have some spam protection built in, so it’s important your anti-spam software complements the existing protection rather than duplicating it. This multi-layered approach should ensure virtually all spam gets caught.

How anti-spam software works

Anti-spam software uses several methods to identify whether each email you receive is spam. By analyzing the content of the message, it will assign a ‘spam score’ – anything over a certain threshold will be marked as spam.

It should also refer to a ‘blacklist’ and a ‘white list’, which respectively list blocked and approved senders. The white list is an important tool; by adding everyone you know to it, you can virtually eliminate false positives.

Your anti-spam software should give you control over what happens to messages marked as spam. For instance, initially you may want them filtered into a quarantine area, where you can review them for false positives. Then, as you refine the settings, you may reach a point when you’re happy for all detected spam to be deleted without you ever seeing it.

What to look for in anti-spam software

Spam isn’t going away. In spite of recent decreases in the volume of spam in the average inbox, spam seems to persist. Why wouldn’t it? It’s easier than ever for spammers to find e-mail addresses. Even if only a few people are taken in, it’s well worth the effort to them.

So what are you going to do about it? Basic Internet safety helps (don’t be too free about passing out your e-mail address, visit only sites you trust, only run as the administrator, etc,), but this isn’t usually enough to stop the flow entirely. Spam filter software has really become essential, but not all filter platforms are made alike.

Adaptability

Keep your eyes open for programs that only work with certain e-mail platforms. The program that’s right for you should be able to function on the e-mail system you already use, even if it happens to be web-based.

Flexibility

Spam filtering software blocks or sets aside unwanted messages. But who decides what’s undesirable? Well, you, actually. Good spam filtering software should allow you to categorize your incoming e-mail any way you choose, rather than leaving you to organize it yourself. It should also be able to outright block anything you wish at whatever level. If there are occasionally items that normally fall under the category of spam that you may be interested in looking at, you should be able to find those items quickly and easily without having to sift through the rest of the junk mail. Spam filtering software should make your e-mail function on your terms.

Accessibility

Quality spam filtering software shouldn’t need a genius to run it. When running a trial, ask yourself if your grandmother could use it. If the answer is no, it may not be as intuitive as it should be. The competition is fierce, and there’s not reason to settle for a platform that’s cumbersome to use.

Efficiency

Beware of software that’s bundled with dozens of features. This may look appealing at first blush, but keep in mind that this software is going to consume at least some amount of your computing assets. Think of it like an airplane. The heavier it is, the more fuel it’ll take to fly it. Don’t fly heavy! How well the platform does the job is what counts.

Good spam filtering software actually goes beyond stopping spam and makes e-mail more fun and efficient to use.