What Does Spam Filter Software Do?

These days one cannot open their email without seeing countless spam messages in their inbox. For the email-recipient, spam is easily recognized. However, the receiver of spam loses countless hours manually deleting the intrusive messages from their inbox. Spam filter software can help mitigate this overwhelming chore. Spam filter software can reduce the amount of junk mail delivered to a user's inbox.

Shockingly, the content of spam email can range from the incomprehensible to the downright obscene. Spam is dangerous to both the computer and its users. Junk mail can contain viruses, keyloggers, phishing attacks and more. These types of malware can comprise a user's sensitive private data by capturing bank account information, usernames and passwords. Spam blocker applications can assist a user in preventing these types of PC contaminations.

Certainly, there are advantages to using a spam blocker. However, no spam filter software is 100% effective. Despite this limitation, spam filter software can assist parents in blocking email that contains pornography and other questionable content.

Clearly, a war is waging inside a user's inbox. The battle to stop spam is an ongoing ever-changing fight. Implementing spam filter software is a good first protective step. Spam filter software can help a user create a solid wall of defense that only lets wanted emails into their inbox.

In this site, you will find articles about spam filter software as well as side-by-side comparisons and objective reviews about the top spam filter software available. We will provide the information you need to make an informed decision about which spam filter software is the best for you. At TopTenREVIEWS We Do the Research So You Don't Have To.™

What to Look for in Spam Filter Software

The best spam filter software is easily customizable by computer users of all levels. The most important feature of any spam filter software is the ability to reliably prevent and block spam. The spam filter software you pick should support multiple email clients and webmail service providers. It is important to choose a spam filter software that meets your needs and fits into the services and applications you use.

Below are the criteria TopTenREVIEWS used to evaluate the best spam filter software:

Blocking/Filtering
Reliably blocking and filtering spam is the most valuable feature of any spam filter software. The spam filter software should come equipped with multiple capabilities that prevent junk mail from contaminating the user's inbox. The best spam filtering software has both black and white lists, sensitivity settings, community-based filtering, challenge and response techniques, and quarantine settings. Additional features to evaluate are blocking by IP address, server, email address, and country code.

Protection
Spam blocker apps should have the capability of protecting multiple user accounts with a single installation. Moreover, the spam blocker must protect the user from email that contains worms, viruses, Trojans, attachments with embedded keyloggers and other malware. Additionally, robust spam filter software can identify HTML email that contains phishing attacks designed to garner a user's sensitive personal information.

Rules
The spam filter software should give the user the ability to edit predefined rule settings as well as the creation of new rules. The best spam filter software can adapt to meet the needs of the user, not the other way around.

Compatibility
When selecting a spam blocker, one needs to evaluate if the spam filtering software they select is compatible with their current email client or webmail service provider. Common supported email clients include Thunderbird, Outlook, Outlook Express and other POP3/SMPT applications. The spam filtering software should also support several webmail service providers like Gmail, Yahoo, Hotmail and others.

It is unfortunate that spam and junk email is cluttering up everyone's email inbox. Spam filter software can assist a user in managing these unwanted solicitations. With a spam blocker in place, users can spend more time reading valid email instead of wasting time manually filtering unwanted email messages. In this spam filter software review our top three spam blockers are SPAMfighter Pro, Cloudmark DesktopOne Pro and MailWasher Pro 2010.