Making the right connections
| Microsoft Outlook Spam and Phishing Filter |
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In the two years to the end of 2008 more
than 1 million unique, suspected phishing scams have been reported
to the website Phishtank . Brands used include
eBay, Bank of America, HSBC, and PayPal and the false websites
grow ever more close to the real thing. The fact is your PC is under constant attack
from a tide of potential malware and virus infection. iHateSpam
is a consumer product from Sunbelt Software designed to provide
simple and accurate protection from spam, phishing, and email-borne
viruses. The results of these attacks range from nuisance to becoming
a victim of fraud. |
Key Features:
- Immediate protection - iHateSpam appears as a toolbar integrated
into the email application and begins filtering incoming email straight
away
- Automatic updates - iHateSpam's automatic filtering is totally
independent. Sunbelt's network of millions of trusted users report
in real time new spam, phishing, and virus attacks, enabling the service
to rapidly adapt to the newest threats.
- Accuracy - the highest rate in the industry. The Friends List feature
automatically trusts email from the user's Contacts folder in a single
mouse click so you can ensure no legitimate email gets caught.
- International protection - iHateSpam automatically keeps abusive
messages in all languages out of users' inboxes
- Complete vigilance - All spam formats are blocked, including the
latest permutations of image and PDF spam.
- Lean and lightweight - iHateSpam requires very little memory. It
does not slow your computer's performance as the bulk of the required
processing takes place on the Sunbelt servers.
| Ease of Use: iHateSpam supports Microsoft Outlook on Windows XP, Windows 2000, Windows Vista so it slots right alongside email clients on most PCs out there. Install is a two minute job - it actually took me longer to make a cup of tea. Although iHateSpam is automatic, you can customize as required. You can choose where spam is stored, whether it is automatically deleted, and how often. This is a matter of three or four mouse clicks - it is that simple. Using the big "Is Spam" and "Not Spam" buttons you can report email messages to Sunbelt. This data is used in real-time to correct automatic filtering throughout the Sunbelt network. Again it is matter of a mouse click.
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Product Performance:
Spam filters have two measures of performance - false positives and false negatives.
A false positive is a legitimate message incorrectly categorized as spam. Because iHateSpam quarantines spam until you delete it, there is no threat of permanent information loss.
Users sometimes send legitimate messages whose entire content is in the Subject field while the body of the message is blank. By design, iHateSpam does not block these messages.
A false negative is a spam or phishing message incorrectly categorized as legitimate. iHateSpam regularly achieves filtering rates above 96%
Free vs. Paid: - Sunbelt offer the first 30 days for free. Thereafter the first year subscription is $19.95 (or about £16 in the UK). Subscription renewal is then $9.95 (or £8) a year. To put that in perspective
- over the first two years that is four cents (about two pence.)
a day without accounting for the 30 days free offer. In the light
of the huge wave of spam this blocks that really is nothing. |
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| Personal Experience: - I have found iHateSpam to be simple to use and easy to keep up to date. That last bit is important as getting a 94-96% accuracy rankings means you have to take part a bit and tell the system what is and what is not spam. It is a classic case of putting a little effort in to get a bigger return. The 30 day trial is very generous and the fact iHateSpam 'learns' to evolve is a key in drastically reducing the junk in your email trunk.
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| Last Updated February 10, 2010 | Copyright Affiliate Links World 2009 © |
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