Product: McAfee SpamKiller 4.0 Developer: Network Associates Price: HK$198 Pros: Easy to install and use; effectively filters unwanted e-mail Cons: Does not support Web-based e-mail accounts other than MSSN/Hotmail Every morning when I check my e-mails, at least four out of 10 are junk mails I do not want to receive. It is annoying and wastes my time. They promise a whole lot of weird things like improved masculinity, debt elimination, finding a partner, a peek at sexy schoolgirls and so on. It is time-consuming to sort through and delete unwanted messages, some of which are downright offensive. The productivity you lose in sifting through spam, plus the hijacked server space and bandwidth, can put a dent in your budget or threaten your sanity. Say goodbye to these woes. Network Associates' new SpamKiller is one of the best anti-spam solutions on the market, enabling individuals and small businesses to filter unwanted spam from their e-mail. While other Internet security vendors concentrate only on providing and perfecting their anti-virus solutions, Network Associates expanded its product line to help consumers and companies deal effectively with spam. The security specialist's McAfee SpamKiller Version 4.0 quickly and easily stops spam from polluting your inbox using a rule and list-based filtering technology while working seamlessly with your e-mail program. One key thing I like about SpamKiller is that you do not have to be technically inclined to install and use it, thanks to its clean interface and a wizard that finds your e-mail program and imports the address book (labelling everyone in it a non-spammer). SpamKiller has many welcome features, and implements them more elegantly than most other add-ins. The software is a snap to run. Buttons activate basic features (like checking e-mail), while a toolbar lets you scan your inbox or edit filters. The filters are at the heart of SpamKiller. There are six groups of filters in the software you can edit, or you can create new filters to fine-tune which messages reach your mailbox. These preconfigured filters help you to scrutinise inbound messages by watching for telltale content in the subject lines, body text, sender's addresses and message headers. They can even block e-mail based on its country of origin. When SpamKiller finds a suspected spam, it automatically quarantines it in a folder called 'Killed Mail' for a period of 30 days. If a legitimate e-mail is flagged as spam, you can recover it in one quick step. While other spam software on the market supports only POP3 e-mail accounts, SpamKiller works with MAPI, some corporate e-mail systems, MSN and Web-based e-mail such as Hotmail. Specifically, it supports multiple e-mail clients including Microsoft's Outlook and Outlook Express, Qualcom's Eudora and Netscape Communicator. You can also set a function to monitor and filter your home e-mail from work or your work e-mail from home. You do not have to worry that your friends' messages might be mistaken as junk mail, since SpamKiller can automatically import your friends' e-mail addresses into its friends list. You can also add new friends, newsletters or complete domains to the friends list. The software also allows you to manually or automatically send complaints or error messages to try to prevent future spam from the same sender. The complaints are sent to an abuse-reporting address at the spammer's domain, while the error messages are sent to the spam's reply address. Hopefully, I can use this to trick senders into believing that my e-mail address does not exist - and put an end to annoying spam.
