How to Choose Anti-spam Filter Software

Nowadays, spam is more than just an irritating flood unwanted email. It is also a means by which spammers can transmit viruses, spyware and adware to your computer. An anti-spam filter is essential to minimizing this potential risk. It will also stem the flow of spam into your inbox.

What is an anti-spam filter?

An anti-spam filter is a program designed to detect and block unsolicited bulk email. It works by scanning any incoming email for words, phrases, html code and other spammer tactics to determine whether an email is spam or not. It does this based on probability formulas that calculate the likelihood that an email that has certain words is spam.

It will also create black lists and white lists. The blacklist will store email from unknown ISP and email addresses or ISP addresses; the whitelist will hold email that is sent from pre-approved sources. The filter software will also keep these lists up to date. Whenever the filter detects that an incoming email is spam, its address is added to the blacklist. Whenever the sender or recipient confirms an email as trusted and legitimate, it will be added to the white list. Most of the "sporm" (spam pornography) will be filtered out as well as any email that it detects has adult content.

What Should You Look for in Anti-spam Filter Software?

Here are other important features you should take into consideration:

- Make sure the anti-spam filter software is compatible with your particular email service. Do not take it for granted that it will work with what you have.

- It is important that the software program is easy for you to use and navigate. Anti-spam software is worthless if you can't figure out how to use it or if it has features you do not understand.

- The features and tools the software offers should enable you to customize the program to suit your own needs. It should be flexible in letting you set your own rules regarding which email to permit into your inbox and what you want to filter out or block.

- Ideally, it should enable you to set up whitelist, which will indicate particular email and ISP addresses that should always be delivered to the inbox. This will ensure that legitimate email from trusted sources will never be filtered out or accidentally deleted.

- The software should install with ease, with zero or minimal errors encountered during set up. Some anti-spam software requires registration, additional downloads or other steps to be taken before it can be used.

- The software you choose should be stable in its release and workings. One way to check this is to look at the release package and view what the programmers or company states is the last stable release. It is probably not in your interests to buy software that is still in the beta phase, particularly if you are not familiar with the program.

Spam is irritating at best, and maliciously destructive at worst. Buying the right anti-spam software will go a long way toward protecting you from the spammers of the world.