The Free Software Store - Spam Filtering Software

Here's some eye-opening statistics about spam:

In April 2008 it was estimated that the total volume of spam exceeded 100 billion emails per day
It's also estimated that spam cost businesses $100 billion globally in 2007, and the IT cost of handling spam has expanded from $20 billion in 2003 to $198 billion by 2007.
Spam has been growing exponentially for decades, but in recent years this exponential growth has levelled off. This is partly due to better spam filtering
Nonetheless, it's estimated that between 85% and 90% of all emails sent over the Net are now spam
Most email addresses used by spammers are collected from chatrooms, websites and newsgroups by spiders, and also from malware which harvests users' address books
In 2004 a study by Commtouch found that 5 countries in the world were hosting 99.68% of spammer websites (that is, the websites users are directed to if they respond to a spam). And the biggest of these was China, which hosted 73.58%
As of early 2008, spam mostly comes from Asia (34%), Europe (31%), North America (19%) and South America (14%).
Governments around the world have contributed to the growth of spam by failing to take concerted, uniform action to stamp it out. Some countries require users to opt in; others to opt out; and still other countries have no effective anti-spam laws at all
Most incredibly of all, though, is estimated that fewer than 200 people are responsible for 80% of the world's spam

Background: The earliest Internet spam was sent in 1978 when the Net (as we now know it) barely existed. But ever since then it's been a plague that wastes literally millions of hours of human time and effort around the world each year.

And the best remedy for spam is simply for Governments to get tough.

In Australia (for example) the Federal Government passed the Spam Act 2003 and Australian spam dried up almost overnight. Why? Because the Act made it obvious that anyone spamming in our country would be hunted down, bankrupted and imprisoned.

And while this may sound a bit harsh, it's not hard to do if a country is absolutely determined to wipe spamming out with one of the toughest pieces of anti-spam legislation in the world.

Sadly, though, other countries have been less strict than Australia about wiping out spammers. So Australians (and everyone else around the world) still suffer from this plague. And we'll probably continue to do so until there's zero tolerance for spammers (ie criminals) globally.

In the meantime a lot of time, effort and money has gone into creating spam filtering software - sometimes also called spam blocking software - to weed out the torrent that saturates the Net every day. Some of the more highly technical spam filtering software is used by ISPs and some of it by network administrators.

But this page reviews popular spam filters that you can download and add into your own email software to get some breathing space from the seedy underbelly of the Net.

Tip! The best way to kill spam is the simplest: never respond to it. Never buy anything from a spammer. And if your country has officials you can report spam to, report it. Spammers only spam because there are people out there - less and less each year, fortunately - who are foolish enough to give them money. But cut money out of the equation and spamming loses its lustre ...fast!

Spamfighter is Europe's leading spam filter and it derives at least part of its power by pooling spam reports from its user base of more than 5 million people. The software integrates seamlessly with Outlook Express and in a 30-day trial we found that it correctly detected and removed up to 50% of the several hundred spams we receive each day (and it kept getting better as time went by!). SpamFighter is available as a free download for Windows users. If you want to use the Pro version after the 30-day trial period you'll need to pay an annual fee, though. Otherwise you'l be automatically downgraded to SpamFighter's Standard version which has a slightly reduced function set but still offers useful spam filtering protection.
Get Spamfighter.

Spam Bully installs easily into Outlook Express and Vista Mail and uses a Bayesian spam filter to intelligently keep your In-box spam free. You can set it to allow or block e-mail addresses, IP's, and words/phrases that you choose. Spam Bully also lets you block spam by country and/or language; bounce spam back to spammers (which can make some of them think your email address is dead) and report spammers to their hosts. Spam Bully can also auto delete spam as it downloads and to send challenge emails to unfamiliar emailers, amongst several other things. Spam Bully works on all versions of Windows from Win98 to Vista and is available in most major European languages. It's distributed as 14-day free trialware. After that you'll need to pay US$29.95 a year if you want to keep using it. Get Spam Bully.

MailWasher Free - unlike Spamfighter and Spam Bully, above - allows you to preview your e-mail on the server before you download it to your computer to get protection from spam, viruses, phishing attacks and other nuisances (ie you can delete unwanted e-mail before it gets to you). Other features help identify and protect you against viruses and worms. MailWasher includes comprehensive antispam tools, a recycle bin and many other features and works on all versions of Windows from Win95 to Vista. The free version supports a single e-mail account, but has no auto delete feature and no user support. However a commercial upgrade version is available if you want those features. Get MailWasher Free.

JAM Software's SpamAware is a plugin for Outlook and Outlook Express and runs on all versions of Windows from 2000 to Vista. It uses the open source SpamAssassin project to score new incoming mails and decides (based on the settings you make in the program's options) what to do with the mail. SpamAware supports Black- and Whitelist filtering (it will import all your existing contacts to its Whitelist) and Bayesian scanning. The application itself is completely functional after installation and becomes active automatically when new emails arrive. Best of all, SpamAware is distributed as freeware. Get SpamAware.

Robin Keir's K9 is an email filtering program that works in conjunction with your regular POP3 email account automatically classifies incoming emails as spam or non-spam without the need for maintaining dozens of rules. It uses intelligent statistical analysis that can result in extremely high accuracy over time, learning from its mistakes and steadily becoming better and better at being able to identify spam (up to 95% spam capture in many cases). More importantly, it learns to recognize what you consider as spam! K9 is designed for standard POP3 email accounts only and runs on all versions of Windows from Win95 to Windows XP. It's distributed as freeware. Get K9.

Finally, Cactus Spam Filter is a spam blocker that works on Windows 2000 and XP. It protects your inbox by learning to detect spam as it's being used, and after a short while it will have adapted to your mailbox and will effectively block most junk e-mails. Cactus Spam Filter integrates seamlessly with all e-mail clients that use POP3 such as Outlook, Outlook Express, Opera, Thunderbird, Eudora, Pegasus Mail, IncrediMail etc and once you've downloaded and installed it no more settings are required - just start your favorite e-mail program and Cactus Spam Filter will instantly protect it. This very easy to use software is highly rated as is distributed as freeware. Get Cactus Spam Filter.

This page last updated: 17-Aug-2008