McAfee SpamKiller 4.0
Though a tad pricey, SpamKiller is an effective spam filter for virtually any e-mail software.
True to its name, Network Associates McAfee SpamKiller 4.0 does a professional job whacking spam. The standalone program now works with nearly any POP mail client, including Outlook, Outlook Express, MSN, and Hotmail. But it's not a perfect solution. Unlike iHateSpam, for example, it doesn't integrate within your e-mail software, so you must download your mail twice (once in SpamKiller, then in your mail client). Also, we had some problems getting it to work correctly with MSN mail. And SpamKiller is expensive: the former US$30 shareware package was purchased last spring by McAfee and now costs US$40 for the downloadable version and US$50 for the CD, making it the priciest antispam software around. Still, if you hate spam (and who doesn't?), SpamKiller is our choice.
Downloading SpamKiller's 4MB setup file took less than a minute using a DSL connection. The program's setup is a matter of following a simple installation wizard then rebooting, at which point the software automatically searches your hard drive, identifying your e-mail client, and importing your address book and server settings. Unfortunately, the program also installs the McAfee Security Center, a screen that shows the status of all McAfee Security apps (even if you have only one), which then routinely pops up requests for updates. With no way to turn this off, McAfee Security Center can quickly grow tiresome.
SpamKiller's interface is straightforward. Click the Check All button, and SpamKiller reviews all of your accounts, putting suspected spam in its Killed Mail folder and the rest into Live Mail. You then scan the folders to make sure the program didn't miss any spam or flag legitimate messages, then launch your normal e-mail client. SpamKiller prevents the spam in the Killed folder from downloading to your in-box. In our tests, the program stopped 100 percent of the spam coming into our EarthLink account, but it inexplicably missed other spam that landed in our MSN Inbox.
SpamKiller comes chock-full of features, the best of which is its huge list of more than 5,000 spam filters. SpamKiller scans the sender line, then the subject line, body text, header, and country of origin on each message, looking for telltale signs of spam, such as XXX or 100% guarantee. McAfee updates these filters nearly every day via the software's automatic update feature, or you can create your own filters. If you prefer, SpamKiller will check your mail at regular intervals and flag suspected spam without sending it to the Killed folder.
As in previous versions, SpamKiller makes it easy to forward complaints to the abuse department of the spammer's ISP or send phony error messages back to spammers so that they'll remove you from their lists--a satisfying way to exact a little revenge.
McAfee SpamKiller 4.0
Company: McAfee
Price: US$39.95 via download.
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Thanks for interesting information!
I would recommend other anti-spam tool – <a href="http://www.spambully.com/">SpamBully</a>. It is a nice and easy to use Bayesian spam filtering program, it integrates with Outlook and Outlook Express.
The way SpamBully is that it views your current email folders' contents and learns from that to help distinguish between spam and regular emails.
Also it has a lot of great features such as Friends/Spammers lists, email blocking by country/language, Allow/Block words and phrases, attachment blocking…
Also it allows you to see detailed information about each email you receive - IP address, country, character set, and how SpamBully ranked it. Tells you why a message was or was not blocked and how to correct this in the future.