Feature Set:  

SPAMfighter has the ability, with little effort on your part, to keep over 95% of SPAM out of your inbox. All selected undesirable-type emails are derailed into the SPAMfighter folder and then you have the choice to blacklist or whitelist them, this will either ban or allow a specific email address. The buttons to do this are installed right into your email toolbar, all you have to do is select the email and then click the blacklist or whitelist button or you have a choice of more extensive options if you need them.

One of the most unique features of SPAMfighter is the community aspect. The preference of the community has the power to dictate what type of email is going to be considered SPAM. If enough members of the community vote a particular type of email onto the blacklist the domain and the IP source of the email will be prohibited from sending email to the entire community.

The difference between SPAMfighter and many other SPAM filters is that it is designed to limit the incorrect directing of wanted email into the SPAM or junk folder. Some products “over-protect” and desired email is forever lost in the SPAM folder to never be found. With this SPAM filter software a small percentage of questionable emails may get through, but you have the choice as to whether you are going to blacklist or whitelist the email address. So, if you receive an email from a new client that you do not yet have on your contact list, more than likely it will not be lost in your SPAM folder, which of course is good for business, maintaining client relations and keeps you from losing your new friends.

Ease of Use:  

We found the SPAMfighter software intuitive to use. The program is actually quite simplistic, so there are not too many ways to get confused. Setting filter levels is extremely straightforward, it offers default or a range from very soft to very hard. Complicated configuration choices are not an issue, SPAMfighter makes all of the hard choices easy.

When an unwanted email is received it only takes a matter of seconds to advise SPAMfighter to block or blacklist the email address or domain. It is just as simple to add desired email addresses or domains to the whitelist, so it will discontinue relaying them to the SPAM folder and send them directly to you inbox.

Ease of Installation:  

Installing SPAMfighter is incredibly easy, you simply go to their site, click download, enter your email information and that is about it. However, we did run into a little problem, we tried to download the SPAM filter twice on to two different computers to be used with a Windows Live email account. However, it automatically installed to Outlook Express, though we received our confirmation emails in the Windows Live email account. It took a bit of work to figure out this problem.

On the positive side, SPAMfighter worked perfectly with Outlook Express and Outlook. In addition, our contact list of “safe” email addresses imported almost instantaneously, so approved email contacts were immediately placed on the “whitelist.”

Stability:  

While testing SPAMfighter we did not encounter any stability issues, it also did not seem to slow down our email client either. SPAMfighter ran almost unnoticeably and did what it was supposed to do.

Customization:  

SPAMfighter allows you to easily customize the filter by email address, domain and language. The software includes the ability to block email messages in over twenty languages including Chinese, German, French, Spanish and Russian. It can also be configured to only accept email from selected languages.

SPAMfighter incorporates a unique community approach to eliminate spam. If a certain number of community members ban a specific type of email, than the domain, IP and email address will be blocked from the entire community. One good feature of this product in regards to filter customization is that individual blacklists and whitelists can override the communities’ spam declarations for that specific user. Since, one man’s SPAM may be another man’s treasure, so to speak.

Spam Filtering:  

The marketing material for this software reports that SPAMfighter can catch 95% of all SPAM, in the testing process this software hit a bit under this percent, but came very close. However, keep in mind that the success and accuracy of this SPAM filter depends on current community input; the more accurate and up-to-date the community action, the better the filtering.

SPAMfighter is exceptionally simple to use and is definitely worth trying out. If you don’t like the idea of sending out emails with a small footer text ad, be sure to download the Pro version and join forces with a large community in the battle against the common enemy - SPAM.