If you are using a desktop email client like Microsoft Outlook or Mozilla Thunderbird you know that the antispam capabilities are limited to that one client. This can be a problem if more than one email client is used on the computer. But there is another problem. What if the antispam module of the desktop email client is not catching all the spam?
Spamfighter promises a solution for both of these problems. The software, which is available as a free and professional version, fights spam on a system wide level. The software supports Microsoft Outlook, Outlook Express, Windows Mail and Mozilla Thunderbird. Computer users with one or multiple of those clients configured on their system can make use of the antispam software.
Spamfighter Review
New users need to create a spamfighter account right in the application after installation. All they need to supply is an email address and password.
The application always starts in the Overview window which displays information and statistics. Among them the number of processed emails, the emails that have been blocked by Spamfighter or by the user, the time saved and the spam ratio. Community statistics are displayed as well, they currently read 45 billion processed emails of which more than 37 billion were spam, that’s a ratio of 85%.
Spamfighter taps right into all compatible email clients that are configured on the system. We could not get the program to work with the latest Mozilla Thunderbird 3.3 alpha, but that’s understandable since it is not officially supported. Spamfighter did install correctly into Outlook 2010 which was installed as part of Microsoft Office 2010. It has to be noted that Spamfighter can not process IMAP accounts.
The controls in the email client can be used to block or unblock emails among other things. Spamfighter will automatically create a new spamfighter folder in the email client where all emails that have been identified as spam are stored in. It is possible to unlock emails from there with the unblock button, or move regular emails into the spam folder with the block button. Emails in the spam folder can be accessed normally. All spam that is manually blocked is reported to the Spamfighter community so that all community members benefit from spam reports by members.
Additional controls are accessible under the more button.
Here it is possible to blacklist or whitelist domains or email addresses. Whitelisting means that emails will never be identified as spam, blacklisting the opposite of that.
The spam folder can be changed in the main program. Here it is furthermore possible to select if spam mails should be flagged as read or unread when moved, and whether Spamfighter should rescan the folder on startup which will rescan all unread emails that are stored in selected folders of the email client.
Filters can be edited in the main program as well. Here it is possible to add entries to blacklists and whitelists, or import lists from comma separated data files or compatible email clients.
Another interesting option is language recognition. Here it is possible to reject emails based on their language. Say you are from the United States and only receive emails in English. You could then select to only receive email messages in English which would automatically flag emails in different languages as spam. The other option available is to block emails from select languages only. It pretty much works the same way, the difference is that you will receive emails in all languages but the ones that you have selected to reject.
Spamfigther Verdict
Spamfighter is an excellent program for computer users who run at least one of the supported desktop email clients. Its core features are the cloud based approach to identifying new spam messages and the filtering system, especially the language filter.
The program is easy to setup and use as it integrates automatically with supported email clients. Experienced computer users will find the whitelisting and blacklisting of email addresses and domains useful, inexperienced users that it works very well right of the box.
Spamfighter Giveaway
We have ten licenses to give away. Please let us know about your current antispam setup for a chance to win a license.
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I use the spyware version and would like the spamfighter.
I’m currently using Gmail, live built-in spam filter,
Count m in for giveaway.
Thanks for giveaway