Software
Anti-spam softwareThis website is supported by its audience. When you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission.
SPAMfighter Pro Review
| Reviewer: | Stephen Qualtrough |
| Developer: | SPAMfighter |
| Ranked: | 2nd |
| Overall rating: | |
| Price: | $29.00 |
| Purchase: |
|
Review summary
Good points
Features an easy-to-use interface
Integrates well into supported e-mail clients
Draws from a community-built spam database
Blocks a high percentage of spam messages
Protects users from phishing attacks
Bad points
Difficult to determine why certain messages are marked as spam
Our verdict
If you're looking for an effective anti-spam solution, you probably needn't look any further. During our testing phase, it managed to keep out 95% of spam samples which is impressive in itself. It's also easy to use, clear and does the job with minimal of fuss.
Full review
No one likes dealing with spam. It is more than just an annoyance; it is also a security risk. In fact, spam messages often contain malicious scripts and harmful attachments that can cause serious problems. SPAMfighter, an anti-spam tool developed in Denmark, was designed to prevent spam from ever reaching users' inboxes. To see if it could prevent spam from reaching our system's e-mail client, we decided to give SPAMfighter a shot.
Setup
Downloading SPAMfighter Pro from the developer's website is quick and easy. Also, since the program was created for those who have limited computer experience, it is easy to install as well. Compared to other anti-spam software, however, SPAMfighter Pro is a bit slow to install. On our system, SPAMfighter Pro installed in about five minutes. After it installed successfully, we ran the setup wizard and configured SPAMfighter to work with our compatible POP3 e-mail accounts.
Compatibility
SPAMfighter Pro is compatible with Microsoft Outlook, Outlook Express, Windows Mail, Windows Live Mail, and Thunderbird. However, in order for SPAMfighter Pro to work, users must ensure that their e-mail is retrieved via POP3; SPAMfighter Pro does not support IMAP. Similarly, it does not support webmail services, such as Hotmail and Yahoo! Mail. However, these webmail accounts can be accessed through an e-mail client if they support POP3.
Detection
SPAMfighter Pro blocks spam in a unique, community-based manner. Users around the world report spam through SPAMfighter's toolbar and contribute to SPAMfighter's online database. After messages from a specific domain have been reported as spam by several users, SPAMfighter will automatically block future messages. Users can also add senders and domains to their personal blacklists to prevent spam from reaching their inboxes. To prevent users from losing legitimate e-mails, SPAMfighter automatically adds contact-list information into its whitelist, which is a list of e-mail addresses that SPAMfighter's spam filter ignores.
Effectiveness
During tests, SPAMfighter Pro consistently managed to detect more than 95% of spam, making it one of the most effective anti-spam tools available. Also, with the ability to protect users from phishing and other forms of e-mail fraud, SPAMfighter Pro provides a more comprehensive form of e-mail security than most other anti-spam software.
System performance
SPAMfighter Pro performs quite well. While running, it did not noticeably slow down our system. Thunderbird, the e-mail client that we chose to use it with, also ran without any noticeable decreases in performance.
Features
Multilingual support – SPAMfighter supports 21 different languages, including: English, German, Spanish, Chinese, French, Italian, Greek, Dutch, Swedish, Norwegian, Finnish, Russian, Bulgarian, Portuguese, Japanese, Thai, Czech, Turkish, Polish, Vietnamese, and Danish.
Language filtering – This filter allows users to block e-mails based on the language that their content is written in.
Picture filter – This filter recognizes some spam messages based on the images that they contain. This is an impressive feature, and it is one of the many components that contribute to SPAMfighter's ability to save users both time and frustration.
Ease of use
Many anti-spam tools work separately from e-mail clients. While this method of spam filtering usually works well, most users prefer anti-spam software that integrates with their e-mail clients, at least partially. SPAMfighter Pro integrates well with all of its supported clients, but it can also be used independently from them.
Help & support
Official support for SPAMfighter Pro is available through the SPAMfighter website. While this website provides plenty of help and information for SPAMfighter Pro, this software is so simple and intuitive that most users will probably never need intensive support. However, in the event that support is needed, users can browse through the website's FAQ section to access various reports and advice concerning certain technical issues. If an answer cannot be found in the FAQ section, users are encouraged to contact SPAMfighter's support staff via e-mail or telephone.
Overall
All things considered, SPAMfighter Pro is a great anti-spam tool, and it offers several unique features that competing products do not. Business users and home users will both benefit a great deal from the filtering capabilities that SPAMfighter provides. These filtering capabilities save users time, and they also protect computers from malicious spam and phishing attacks. We highly recommend SPAMfighter Pro as an anti-spam filter and as a tool that can be used to defend systems against certain security risks.
Looking for more anti-spam software reviews?
See our side-by-side comparisons and in-depth reviews