subject: Safeguarding Your Mailbox With Spam Filters [print this page] When looking for anti-spam software, you would often seek a program that has a 100% success rate in spotting and removing spam emails from your mailbox. However, this is most likely not going to happen. Spammers are always inventing new techniques to trick the filters, and the developers of anti-spam software try not to overlook it.
Most anti-spam programs can be customized to your needs, and only the approved emails come into your inbox. Here are some of the essential features.
The first feature would be removing spam before it enters the inbox. Some of these anti-spam programs would be comprehensive enough to check everything - the sender's address, the subject line, and finally the message. Some anti-spam programs allow you block emails with various types of attachments. Most anti-spam solutions catch and delete detected spam emails before they slip into your inbox.
There should be regular updates for the filters. A lot of anti-spam software packages have several types of filters included. And these filters would regularly be updated with new filters. Since spam emailers always come up with new ways to infiltrate your inbox, this is a good way to stay updated.
You may also need customized filters. The best anti-spam software makes it a point to make spam filters adjustable, allowing you to customize based on the types of emails you should receive and should not receive.
Quarantining your spam emails is another necessary feature. Spam blockers prevent junk emails from entering your inbox and move them to a specific quarantine or trash folder. These emails are deleted after a few days' time, never to be seen again. You can then check the quarantine folder to determine if your program was able to successfully identify the emails as spam, or if they're legitimate after all.
Recovering emails. Naturally, you would need to send the mistaken spam emails back to your inbox once proven legitimate.
You should have your own whitelist and blacklist. You can maintain your own lists of trusted email senders (whitelist) and suspicious email addresses, from which you are used to receive spam (blacklist). This can be updated at any time.
Monitoring multiple email accounts. Most of us have multiple email addresses, so your spam program should be able to monitor all of these. Both home and work email addresses should be covered, at least.
Automatic filtering is the last requirement of good spam software. Certain anti-spam programs can check inbound mail at fixed time intervals and delete spam without your participation.
