Internet Marketing

With the number of spam filtering solutions increasing each week it’s getting tougher for consumers to make informed choices in their purchases.

There are 3 basic types of spam filters:

1. Integrated
2. Standalone
3. Online

We’ll look at each type of spam filter and at the end you should be able to decide what spam filter is right for you.

Integrated spam filters

This type of spam filtering software is the most common. Once installed it sits “on top” of your existing email software and installs a new set of buttons into your email software. In future when you collect email you’ll see options for marking email as Spam, marking the email as Not Spam, Bounce the email back to sender, etc. The description and position of these buttons varies from one product to the next but their purpose remains the same.

Most integrated spam filters automatically place suspected junk email into a separate folder on your PC for you to review or delete later on.

The newer integrated spam filters are also “intelligent”. They can basically learn the difference between what is spam and what is not and delete the junk email you don’t want.

The most popular integrated spam filters are:

• iHate Spam
• Spambully
• Spam Inspector

Integrated spam filters are most popular amongst people who want a one click solution to collecting their personal email and filtering junk email at the same time.

Advantages:

One click solution.

Disadvantages:

Software specific. Some work with Outlook and Outlook Express only.

Standalone spam filters

These are less common than their integarted counterparts but that doesn’t make them any less useful. A standalone spam filter is basically a separate piece of software installed on your PC that you use to check your email for spam.

Standalone filters have the big advantage of being able to preview your email on the mail server before it’s downloaded to your PC. This one single feature has the huge benefit of allowing you to just download the email that you want as opposed to downloading all of your email, including the spam, and then sorting through it.

Using a standalone spam filter is a little more work simply because it’s a separate piece of software that you have to run before you open up your email software. Most standalone filters do allow you to configure them so that your standard email application is opened once you’ve chosen what spam to filter. This suits some people and not others.

The most popular standalone spam filter is:

Mailwasher Pro

Advantages:

Doesn’t rely on specific email applications to work properly.

Disadvantages:

Two step process. Load standalone filter and then your email application.

Online spam filters

There are really two types of online spam filters. One is for business use and one is for home use. A typical example of a business type product is iHate Spam server edition where the software deletes junk email directly from the mail server before the end user even sees it. Large companies employ this type of technology.

Home users will be using Spam Arrest or similar. Spam Arrest offers an inventive solution to spam whereby any email sent to the users account has a challenge request sent back to it which the sender must authenticate. The automatic junk email software used by spammers can’t currently deal with this type of response. Any failure to authenticate the challenge email results in the junk email being left to die in cyberspace. A user is authenticated with Spam Arrest only once for security just to make sure the software doesn’t become a nuisance.

The most popular online spam filter is:

Spam Arrest

Advantages:

Users are guaranteed to only receive the email that they want or requested.

Disadvantages:

Any technical problems with the Spam Arrest server and you have no defense against spam.

source: ezine article

As everyone who will ever read this, I get spam in my e-mail. Mine seems to fall into one of three categories. The first is a Nigeria scam about helping some poor, pathetic soul collect mega bucks, supposedly from someone who has died and left a fortune. I’m not sure what is worse: that there are people desperate enough to believe that message, or that there are people despicable enough to prey on despair. The result is despicable Con is desperate to send money to the desperate will never see again.

The third type is not so innocent. These people, like other types of people when you talk, surf the web, find sites and harvest email addresses from the “contact us” link. Rather than start out by sending you what they have to offer, they get Devious, Sneaky, and just plain under-handed. They send you a message requesting more information about what you offer on your site. When you answered graciously, it turns out that they could not care less about what you have to offer. All they want is to verify your email address so they can start to copy offers you, hope you will buy something from them. Nasty taste.

The second type comes from people who sound innocent enough. They have a product or a company or service or anything else that is totally legitimate. They surf the web, find one of my sites, find the “contact us”, and send me information on what they have to offer. I guess, in their minds, it is no different than walking on the street or go through the phone book to write down the addresses and then send out bulk business mail with the same offering. They could get the same information on more money and less time by buying a mailing list. This is perfectly legitimate. Harvesting email addresses off of Web sites, it is not. Spam is officially defined as “unwanted junk mail.” The key word is “undesirable.” If I did not ask for it and send it anyway, it is unsolicited. When people harvest e-mail addresses off of websites and then send commercial messages, which by definition is spam. I report them to my ISP and you should too.