PC
anti-spam 2004
by Simon Edwards
Sifting through spam is an irritating and time-consuming activity for computer users – but there is software available that can help.
Simon Edwards tests a selection of cheap and free programs designed to eliminate unwanted messages from your inbox
| How we tested | Reviews | Product Details | Conclusion |
Spam, the unwanted junk email that clogs up your email account and turns the pleasure of downloading new email into a tedious chore, affects nearly everyone. Few people receive no spam at all, and too many suffer from dozens of offensive, annoying and generally pointless messages weekly or even daily.
There are numerous ways to reduce the amount of spam you receive, such as not posting your email address on newsgroups and never replying to spam (not even to unsubscribe). But ultimately, once you start receiving the rubbish you’ll have to deal with it. Luckily there are some very effective programs available that take the pain out of sorting your real mail from dozens of Viagra offers and adverts for dodgy websites. We’ve tested eight of them, as well as two popular mail clients that include anti-spam filters.
How does it work?
Most anti-spam programs are email proxies. These programs run on your PC and behave like a local email server. Normally your email program, such as Outlook Express, sends your username and password to the mail server at your internet service provider (ISP). Once authenticated, it downloads the messages, spam and all, from the internet. With these anti-spam programs the mail client checks the proxy, which is running on your PC and not on a server across the internet. The proxy then checks your ISP’s mail server using your username and password, which may have been provided by the email client or been entered into the proxy by the user previously.
The messages pass from the internet through the proxy, ending up at the email client. When messages reach the proxy it analyses them and then usually does one of two things. If it considers an email to be safe, it allows it to continue untouched. If an email looks like spam, the proxy marks it as such, usually by adding a phrase such as [spam] to the email’s subject heading.
The programs we have tested use different techniques to decide if an email is spam or a genuine message. They all mark suspicious messages by adding a comment to the subject line, which makes it easy for email programs to filter them into separate folders. The advantage of this approach is that you should never lose any real email, even if your anti-spam software makes a mistake. Some can be set up to hold suspected spam in a quarantine area, in which case you can examine the contents and free any suspects.
HOW WE TESTED
We used a genuine collection of personal email messages and downloaded them from a mail server using Outlook Express. Each of the anti-spam programs was left to fend for itself, without the benefit of training or lists of known friendly addresses. We would expect all these programs to become more accurate with some care and attention from the user. More than 90 per cent of the messages in the collection were unwanted, which illustrates what a problem spam can be.
Some of the undesirable emails were viruses that spread as attachments. We were pleased to see that every spam program treated these as if they were junk.
MOZILLA v OUTLOOK
Microsoft Outlook and Mozilla Mail are popular email programs that include anti-spam filtering facilities. As neither program downloads updates to help detection they have to rely on their own ‘intelligence’, which, sadly, is not up to the job.
Outlook 2002 is slack. While it incorrectly identified just nine per cent of our real messages as spam, it ignored 90 per cent of actual spam. MailShield, without training, is three times as accurate and Norton AntiSpam is four times more effective at ditching spam. SpamPal is nearly seven times better.
Mozilla, by contrast, is harsh, incorrectly labelling 98 per cent of our real mail as spam – although this meant it did not allow one piece of real spam through. AntiSpam is 10 times better at detecting wanted email and SpamPal is eight times better.
It is clear that the anti-spam features in both of these products are next to useless. Some training and filtering will improve their results, but their lack of options ensures that dedicated anti-spam software will be most people’s preferred option until they are improved.
REVIEWS
Aladdin SpamCatcher 3
RATING 4
PRICE £12 inc VAT
SUPPLIER Amazon
DETAILS Aladdin
PROS: Inexpensive and accurate
CONS: The clunky interface will put off less technical users
SpamCatcher is a businesslike spam analyser. It’s a basic proxy that rates messages according to the content and adds a subject header to indicate suspicious messages. The software shows you the settings you need but you set up your email client manually, creating the rules for moving suspected spam out of your inbox and into appropriate folders. It marks suspicious mail with a [spamcatcher] tag in the subject heading.
Its accuracy is excellent, although you’ll need to keep an eye on it initially because it’s slightly harsher than Norton AntiSpam and SpamPal, with more genuine mail picked up as spam. Even so, 82 per cent of the real mail was recognised as such. Only 14 per cent of the spam tricked its way into the inbox. You can add addresses of people you know to the Approved Senders list. Addresses or domains of those you don’t want to know about go in the Blocked Senders list. Judicious use of such lists improves a proxy’s accuracy and speed.
SpamCatcher is not an overly friendly program to set up. It’s annoying that you have to mess around with your email program to get it to work. Accessing the Outlook Express folder-scanning feature, which is still in beta, requires even more tinkering. Once it’s running, though, it works well and you won’t need to fiddle with it.
It’s not expensive, and annual updates are only around £5.50 including VAT. If you don’t require Norton AntiSpam’s looks and prefer to use commercial software rather than freeware such as SpamPal, SpamCatcher is a good choice.
Cloudmark SpamNet 2.4.1
RATING 3
PRICE $40 (approx £22)
SUPPLIER Cloudmark 001 415 543 1220
DETAILS Cloudmark
PROS: Human-based monitoring is potentially very accurate
CONS: Lack of manual control; requires Outlook/Outlook Express
SpamNet uses a technique called Collaborative SpamFighting. This means that when users receive spam they notify Cloudmark’s server, uploading details of the message. This intelligence is then shared with other subscribers to the service and prevalent spam is automatically marked. You still receive the junk messages, which are marked with a [Scanned by SpamNet] subject heading and sent to the Spam folder in Outlook Express or Outlook.
Messages are nominated as spam or unblocked using buttons SpamNet places in Outlook Express and Outlook’s toolbar. Marking a message as spam sends its details to SpamNet. If you prefer Eudora or Mozilla email programs you’ll have to consider a different package, as only the Outlook family is supported.
SpamNet scans stored messages as well as incoming mail and you can mark old mail as spam manually if you want. If you accidentally block a genuine message you can unblock it again. This removes its details from the main database.
Using SpamNet is fairly simple, and it didn’t junk any of our genuine messages. It was, however, a bit slack at detecting spam. Of the software on test, only MailShield allowed more spam through. SpamNet is not as customisable as MailShield, though, so there’s less chance its performance will improve for individuals. For example, you might receive regular spam from a source that isn’t listed on SpamNet’s servers. Maybe this source will be blocked at some point in the future, or maybe not – you don’t have a right to enforce the blocking.
SpamNet works on a trust system where reports from users who accurately and regularly block spam are weighted more heavily than others. How this weighting system works is not entirely clear, and we would prefer to be able to set up our own anti-spam rules as well as relying on the community of SpamFighters.
Lyris MailShield Desktop 3.11
RATING 4
PRICE $60 (approx £33)
SUPPLIER MailShield
DETAILS Lyris
PROS: Lots of options and easy to use
CONS: Quite expensive and requires some customisation
When we reviewed MailShield Desktop in What’s New, November 2003, we were impressed with its accuracy. This was based on its performance after a period of training and without this its spam detection abilities were disappointing. It allowed 34 per cent of the spam into our inbox. More worryingly, it consigned 39 per cent of our real messages to the bin.
MailShield works in two modes. First, it can download mail and analyse it, processing the mail and moving messages it considers to be spam to its built-in Trash area. Falsely condemned messages can be reinstated to the original mail server and their details saved so that similar mistakes won’t happen again. When you check using a standard POP3 email program, you look at the main email account at the ISP, which should have been cleared of most spam by MailShield’s earlier scan.
This method isn’t always the best, as it involves downloading all messages at least twice – once by MailShield and once by your email program – and uploading any misjudged emails again. Those with slower connections should consider the proxy mode, which intercepts the email program, downloads messages from the ISP and feeds the mail through, adding a spam subject heading so you can filter it later.
Messages that have been designated as spam can be analysed by right-clicking them in the MailShield Trash view. This is a useful insight into how the program calculates whether or not a message is spam. It’s easy to adjust how aggressive the program is, and armed with the analysis reports you should be able to improve MailShield’s accuracy immensely. You’ll need to, because out of the box it’s not too hot.
James Farmer SpamPal 1.53
RATING 5
PRICE Free
DETAILS SpamPal
PROS: Fast, accurate and free
CONS: Some manual configuration of email programs is necessary
SpamPal is an anti-spam proxy that works by comparing where each message has been sent from to public lists of known and suspected spammers. This is less processor-intensive than spam-filtering software that analyses each message for signs of being spam, and therefore much faster on many desktop PCs.
The anti-spam proxy does not detect and configure your email program automatically, so you’ll need to make some manual changes to your email settings. The SpamPal website has explicit instructions for all the main email programs available for Windows. If yours isn’t mentioned, you may still be able to deduce the correct settings from the simple instructions.
You can add email addresses to your own lists, to deny and allow mail coming from specific people or organisations. You can leave the rest to SpamPal. It has details of over a dozen lists, some of which are harsher than others in their treatment of suspicious emails. If in doubt, use the preset combinations, which include Safe, Medium and Aggressive. The default settings allowed 88 per cent of genuine messages through and let in just 13 per cent of the spam.
SpamPal will download updated blacklists and new plug-ins. The plug-ins included will check URLs in received messages and check message content in a similar way to those used by the other anti-spam programs on test.
SpamPal is not as easy to use as Norton AntiSpam but it will appeal to those who want control of their spam management. You can even run SpamPal as a mini anti-spam server and have more than one email program access it over a network. Combine this with high accuracy and the fact that it’s free, and you’ve got a winner.
McAfee SpamKiller 5
RATING 2
PRICE £16 inc VAT
SUPPLIER Amazon
DETAILS McAfee
PROS: Importing friends’ addresses is simple
CONS: Far too harsh in its treatment of legitimate email
SpamKiller works by downloading your mail, analysing it and storing it. It acts as a local mail server from which you download messages. The software can check your ISP’s mail server when you go online or at set periods. There is no indication of what the software is doing during this process, which is annoying.
We were intrigued by SpamKiller’s hostile treatment of our email messages. Using its default setting, we watched as every single message was marked as spam. We tried every other setting, including ‘Lowest. Most email will be accepted at this level’, but still every message was branded as spam. We expect a few genuine messages to end up in the spam bin, but not this. McAfee’s support forums say version 5.1 (due soon) will reduce the number of false positives.
You can have the software delete spam before it reaches your inbox, but we wouldn’t recommend this approach. You can also report messages as spam to McAfee, reply with a complaint or send a pretend email server error to the sender. The last two options aren’t very useful, because a lot of spam isn’t sent from the spammers’ own systems.
Heavy use of the Friends list, or importing your address book, improves matters. You can also set SpamKiller to monitor your address book and import new addresses on a regular basis. You can set up your own manual filters in Outlook or Outlook Express to achieve similar results, but this is more time-consuming.
SpamKiller’s general inability to differentiate between legitimate mail and spam makes us wonder how McAfee can justify the price, which is £25 if you buy directly from McAfee’s website.
Neutron-IT SpamStopUp
RATING 2
PRICE $15 (approx £8)
SUPPLIER NEUTRON-IT 0870 340 3313
DETAILS SpamStopUp
PROS: Clever email authentication
CONS: Dodgy anglicisation and harsh filtering by default
SpamStopUp uses a combination of methods to calculate the likelihood of a message’s contents being spam, including blacklists, suspicious words and a large number of other variables. It’s useful to have so many options, and in practice you need to try different combinations because the default settings are harsh. A beady eye will be necessary to avoid losing genuine messages. Although only three spam messages made it into our inbox, 95 per cent of real messages were incorrectly labelled as spam.
One useful feature is that an email is sent to senders of suspicious messages. This message includes a code number, which the sender needs to include in the subject of their next message. On receipt of this, their email address is entered into the whitelist, ensuring that future messages come through.
Some of the documentation, message boxes and option labels are misspelt or in Polish, which won’t help newcomers to anti-spam software. Despite the nice price, there are better deals around.
Robin Keir K9 1.26
RATING 4
PRICE Free
DETAILS www.keir.net
PROS: Accurate results with careful training
CONS: Clunky interface exposes intimidating settings to new users
It’s hard to knock something that works well and costs nothing to download and use. But while K9 is a useful tool for those interested in analysing spam, it’s not for everyone. This email proxy server requires training before it will mark anything as spam, and works using statistical analysis rather than relying on downloaded updates. It can also use a single blacklist, although not by default.
After just one training session K9 achieved an excellent balance between denoting real messages as spam and allowing junk in. Indeed it was more accurate overall than any other anti-spam program on test. This isn’t surprising, as it is customised to the individual user’s needs rather than using general filters.
It is a close rival to SpamPal in both cost and accuracy. K9 doesn’t hide its advanced settings, which might scare less technical users. But if you want to fine-tune your anti-spam system and you don’t mind getting your hands dirty, this is a worthy choice.
Symantec Norton AntiSpam 2004
RATING 5
PRICE £23 inc VAT
SUPPLIER Amazon
DETAILS Symantec
PROS: Very accurate, and the potential to become even more so with use
CONS: It’s more expensive than most other desktop anti-spam programs
Norton AntiSpam combines an anti-spam mail proxy with web advert and pop-up blocking, neatly reducing the amount of internet-based marketing regularly thrown at us. As we expect from a Symantec desktop product, the interface is beyond criticism. It’s unambiguous, providing a clear view on which options are enabled. You don’t even need to change your email software’s settings for it to work. AntiSpam even creates a spam folder in Outlook Express automatically.
The web advert and pop-up blocking are useful and both work well, but they are the sideshow to the main anti-spam event. As with every product reviewed here, AntiSpam can be trained to increase its accuracy. If a spam email gets through, you can mark it as unwanted and the software will analyse it and be more able to recognise similar messages in future. It has a unique self-learning feature, which monitors your outgoing mail and uses this information to work out what sort of mail you’re likely to receive.
Even without training, AntiSpam was effective in filtering our large collection of mail messages and rejected fewer legitimate messages than any other program we’ve seen, with the exception of K9 and SpamNet. We lost only nine per cent of our legitimate mail. It also allowed less junk mail through than SpamNet, with 21 per cent of spam arriving in the inbox. It achieved an excellent balance, without being told anything about our friends’ email addresses.
Even at Amazon’s price, Norton AntiSpam is twice as expensive as Aladdin’s SpamCatcher 3, but this difference in price is justified. AntiSpam is much easier to set up and use, and promises long-term accuracy with its outgoing mail monitoring. The free SpamPal performs almost identically to begin with but doesn’t monitor outgoing mail.
