Home
>
Spam Blocking
>
Stop Spam! New Spam Blockers

Stop Spam! New Spam Blockers

News last week that Internet service provider Verizon settled its lawsuit against Detroit-based spam king Al Ralsky was of little comfort. Ralsky agreed to pay a fine and stop spamming Verizon customers, but he still has plenty of other targets. And there are still hundreds of other spammers who have never visited a courtroom and are all too eager to fill our inboxes with business propositions from deposed Nigerian dictators. Fortunately, the rise of junk e-mail has fueled a vast anti-spam industry, with ISPs and software makers all competing to solve the Net's most intractable problem.

The ISPs are beating the anti-spam drum the loudest right now, because spam drives away new customers and clogs up their servers. Most providers combine several approaches. They subscribe to "RBLs," or real-time blacklists, administered by anti-spam groups like the London-based Spamhaus.org, which maintains constantly updated databases of the worst transgressors and instructs subscribers to block their mail.

Six of the largest 10 ISPs, including MSN and Earthlink, also subscribe to the service of Brightmail. The San Francisco-based company has a team of researchers who constantly monitor dummy e-mail accounts and send out profiles of the latest Net scams, so that ISPs can filter them out before they reach your in-box. (Microsoft's Hotmail, one of the worst spam magnets on the Net, just signed up.) The problem is that companies like Brightmail, fearing the possibility that their dragnet will block an authentic e-mail, are forced to be conservative. And spammers can easily configure their custom-designed software to respond with "spoilers," spaces or bits of code placed within messages that fool the filters. Though Brightmail estimates it catches more than 90 percent of spam, spam watchdog groups think the number is closer to half.

That leaves ISPs trying to add anti-spam tools directly to their e-mail programs. Recently released AOL 8 can color-code your messages into three categories: known and unknown senders, and known bulk e-mailers. There's also a button that lets you report spam directly to AOL. MSN 8 does all this a little better, using machine intelligence designed in Microsoft's research lab to spot spam and send it to a junk folder.

Users looking for another level of protection can try software solutions, which attempt to block spam on your desktop. Software site Download.com lists more than 200 such programs, many free of charge. Most are "rules-based," meaning they filter e-mail looking for certain words ("herbal Viagra") or programming patterns (excessive HTML graphics in the body of the message).

anti spam software reviews

Among the best programs we've tested or heard about: IhateSpam ($29.95) works directly with Outlook or Outlook Express. Exploiting the power of peer-to-peer networks, it reports spam that the software missed to other users of the program. Mailwasher (free, but donation requested), another clever program, bounces back spam to the sender as "undeliverable," trying to fool spammers into thinking they have a bum address. In our tests, it caught 90 percent of unwanted e-mail. Spam Assassin (also free) takes the same tack, and has a great name, but it can be a tad overaggressive, blacklisting the occasional authentic e-mail.

McAfee's Spamkiller ($40) gets a thumbs down because it overcharges and generates complaints to the spammer's e-mail account and ISP. Since spammers often hijack other people's accounts, this has the ironic effect of sending the complaint to an innocent user. Anti-spam spam?

Mary works in US for a media company, occasionally writing for the biggest anti spam software reviews portal, and drinking too much coffee.

high-end home cleaning Morton Grove ..

In The News:

Aigen's Element robot uses solar power and AI to provide farmers with a sustainable alternative to herbicides, working efficiently in cotton and soy fields.

Stay up to date on the latest AI technology advancements and learn about the challenges and opportunities AI presents now and for the future.

Cybercriminals accessed Medicare data of more than 100,000 Americans by creating fraudulent accounts, prompting CMS to deactivate accounts and issue new Medicare cards.

China's battery swap technology from CATL lets electric vehicle owners exchange batteries in under two minutes, with plans to expand to 1,000 stations across 31 Chinese cities by 2025.

Analysts at Silent Push have uncovered a widespread scam that uses counterfeit retail websites to steal the credit card information of online shoppers.

Chrome users need to update their browsers immediately as Google addresses a critical vulnerability that hackers are actively exploiting. Additional security measures are recommended.

A study found teens glance at phones for dangerous two-second intervals while driving, using devices primarily for entertainment, texting and navigation despite crash risks.

Security researchers uncovered a flaw in Windows 11 that allows attackers to disable Secure Boot using Microsoft-signed tools, requiring manual updates to protect against bootkits.

Carnegie Mellon's noninvasive brain technology allows users to move robotic fingers by thinking about the motion, offering new possibilities for people with motor impairments.

Multi-factor authentication (MFA) adds an extra layer of protection to your accounts. Instead of relying only on a password, MFA requires you to verify your identity using two or more methods.

Scientists from Duke, Harvard, and the University of Otago have unveiled a game-changing tool called DunedinPACNI. It uses a single AI brain scan to reveal how fast a person is biologically aging.

A disturbing wave of fake agent phone scams is sweeping across the United States, catching people off guard and draining their savings.

Emojis aren't just playful add-ons; they're powerful tools for building stronger connections in our increasingly digital world.

Google has taken a major step toward the future of clean energy by partnering with Commonwealth Fusion Systems (CFS), an MIT spin-out working to build one of the world’s first commercial fusion reactors.

If you create and share art online, you might have seen messages warning that Facebook's parent company, Meta, claims the right to use or even sell anything you post, whether it's pictures, poems, or artwork.

Cybercriminals hit Qantas in a major data breach that exposed information from up to six million customers.

Having reliable, loud, and timely emergency alerts on your phone or device is important because when severe weather strikes, every second counts.

Here's how your daily brew is becoming the foundation for greener buildings.

Artificial intelligence (AI) and large language models (LLMs), such as ChatGPT, are transforming how we learn. But what does this mean for AI and learning retention?

Modern AI data centers use much more electricity than traditional cloud servers. In many cases, the existing power grid cannot keep up. One innovative solution is gaining traction: repurposed EV batteries for AI data centers.

Microsoft 365 and Outlook users are being targeted by a tactic that injects fake billing alerts directly into their calendars.

Researchers are now showing us that old smartphones as data centers could be the next big thing in sustainable tech.

Scientists have created micro-robots for sinus infection treatment that can enter the nasal cavity, eliminate bacteria directly at the source, and exit without harming surrounding tissue.

Let's examine how your data is collected in everyday life, who is buying and selling it, what happens to it afterward, and, most importantly, what you can do to protect yourself.

Researchers at the University of Sheffield in the U.K. developed small robots called "Pipebots" that can travel inside water pipes to find and potentially repair leaks, all without any excavation.

Stop Spam! New Spam Blockers

Spam Blocking