Freeware Anti-Spam Filters

Recall --

In the past 48 hours, my computer has been utterly bombarded with the W32.sobig.b@mm.html email virus. The worm clogged my mailbox so severely that I wrote an article about it in the last newsletter.

Today, I received an email from a user named Andrew with a suggestion for anti-spam filtering software:

" Hi, Dennis! Sorry to hear about your virus problems. In your last newsletter, you suggested using free anti-virus software and a firewall, in addition to Outlook Express message rules to combat the W32.sobig.b@mm.html email virus. What about using a spam killer? One of my favorite anti-spam software is called K9.

K9 is an email filtering application that works in conjunction with your regular POP3 email program and automatically classifies incoming emails as spam (junk email) or non-spam without the need for maintaining dozens of rules or constant updates to be downloaded. "

http://keir.net/k9.html

Reading the description of K9 reminded me of a program called MailWasher.

Familiar with the name, I decided to jog my memory and performed a search through the "future newsletter topics" mail folder for emails containing "MailWasher". Low and behold, I found the below message sent from Hugh G.:

" I just wanted to let you know that I'm using MailWasher, a program designed to keep out unsolicited commercial email (IE: Spam) and email viruses away from your computer. MailWasher connects to your Mail Server and allows you to preview and delete emails *before* they are downloaded to your Inbox!

MailWasher also has a really handy feature which allows you to bounce emails back to people so it looks like your address doesn't exist. If you're getting a lot of Spam, you can bounce the email back and the Spammers will most likely remove your name from their list. "

After reading Hugh's recommendation and quickly overviewing both products, I opted to install MailWasher on my system.

The installation instructions on the MailWasher web site appeared to be much more simplified than on K9. In fact, the setup of MailWasher was similar to setting up an Outlook Express account.

MailWasher works with your existing e-mail program, whether it is Outlook, Eudora, Netscape or any other program. MailWasher runs on Windows 95, 98, ME, NT, 2000 and XP.

The Pro version has a number of advantages over the free version, including: technical support, a new user Interface, drag and drop email addresses, a preview Window pane, Hotmail + AOL support, access to a global anti-spam database, and the ability to add unlimited email accounts (the free version only does 1 account).

Update 2003/06/16: An in-depth review of MailWasher Pro was compiled in our newsletter. Click here to read!