|
|
|
Jump to side-by-side comparison. Helping you get the best PC performance possible. What is Spam? Simply put, spam is unwanted email sent by someone the recipient does not know. Experts estimate that between 70% - 90% of all email traffic sent is spam. In most cases, spam is simply a nuisance that leaves us with clogged email inboxes and wastes countless hours of our time as we sift and sort through tons of email that may or may not be important to us. Unfortunately, an increasing percentage of spam is not so harmless. Much of of these contain explicit language or photographs. Others contain viruses that may commandeer your computer resources and use your bandwidth to turn it into a "spambot" which sends out spam to others without your even knowing. And even worse, some are outright scams intended to steal account and password information from unsuspecting victims. You've probably received a "phishing" email telling you that your online bank security has been compromised and you need to click the link and change your password. Of course, to change your password, you have to enter your existing account number and password. Gotcha! How do I stop it? The truth is, you can't! How's that for brutal honesty? But you can cope. Because "spammers" use many different means of sending out their emails, your defense must include several fronts.
Anti-Spam Software When people first began sending bulk-email (i.e. spam), there were numerous effective lines of defense. It was rather simple really. Essentially, all a spam blocker had to do was look for certain keywords in the header, subject line and body of the email, and look at the sender's address. It could then block those emails originating from certain addresses and block those containing undesired keywords in the header, subject line or body of the email. Unfortunately, since that time, spammers have become so sophisticated it is simply impossible to block all spam. Headers can be faked, subject lines can be written to be inoffensive or misleading, and text in the body can be replaced with an image containing text as a graphic so that spam filters cannot easily read it. So what about blocking emails based on the address of origination? This is probably the worst part. Some malicious spammers have become so sophisticated that they have developed viruses and worms to try to infect your computer. Once infected, it will take it over your computer and use it as a "spambot" in a "botnet" and use your computer's resources and bandwidth to send out spam for the spammer. At any given time, there are millions of computers that have been infected and turned into spambots. In a given botnet, hundreds of thousands of computers can be marshaled to send out spam for the spammer on command. This is why you may have noticed that you will have several spam emails all containing similar subject lines, but with different headers and different sender addresses. Block one sender address and there are thousands of other spambots still able to send you the same unsolicited spam. You simply can't block them all. But it's not all bad news. Not all spammers have a botnet at their disposal, so blocking by sender address can help. Also, not every spammer uses graphics to bypass filtering techniques and many Spam Blockers use very sophisticated filtering algorithms that can be very effective at blocking or at least segregating spam from legitimate emails. Many also provide the ability to define a "whitelist" which is just a list of "approved" senders. This can cut down on the number of "false positives" where legitimate emails are erroneously identified as spam. To further evaluate Anti-Spam software for possible purchase, I have provide the following table which lists several popular Spam Blockers and compares the capabilities and features they offer. In the interest of full disclosure, I am an affiliate for each of the products compared below (as well as many others). That means that if you buy one of these products, I will get a small commission. One last point. Beware of free offers. Almost no one on the internet wants to help you for free. In case you missed that, I'll say it again. Almost no one on the internet wants to help you for free. As I just mentioned, I get a small commission if you purchase one of the products linked to from my website. I think that's fair. I provide you with information to assist you in making informed purchasing decisions, and I refer you to legitimate merchants who offer quality products that you may purchase. So I should receive a small fee for helping both you and the seller. That's the American way! But again, almost no one wants to help you for free. Free software is usually "bundled" with Adware and Spyware which can, at best, annoy you with unwanted pop-up advertisements and at worst, steal your personal information stored on your computer. For more information about Spyware, see my link at the top of this page.
|
|
Last modified: October 17, 2008 |
