User comments on spam filters

See also: Spam survey results from the first 1,000 responses (6/29/06 - 7/20/06)

Product	Comment
Abaca Email Protection Gateway	We did a 30 day eval on Symantec, Barracuda, and Abaca. Barracuda - good enough filtering - best admin -  non-tech users liked quarantine - high price. Abaca - best filtering - barely good enough admin - tech users liked quarantine - low price. Symantec - worst filtering - worst admin - worst quarantine - high price. Abaca took 25 minutes to install and during the final 3 weeks of the eval, there weren't any false positives. We have 65 users.
AntiSpam Mail Filter	needs user adjustable visual settings. needs provision to protect specified legit domains (aol, yahoo, msn, etc.) from being blacklisted by a click error and deleting emails from legit sources without further notice.
AOL	AOL blocks most spam but I do often find non-spam messages in my Spam folder.
AOL	Given it's AOL, spam filter works rather well
AOL	Have to check spam folder from time to time to retrieve non-spam, but that's better than the alternatives!
AOL	I also use gmail by google and the spam filter is quite good. I like being able to pick words that if in the subject line, places the email in the spam folder as AOL does.
AOL	I used to forward each spam back to the orinating ISP providor (using Whois). I also copied the spam@uce.gov
AOL	If you purchase anything online, make a complaint, ask a question, you are automatically added to their email list and many other spam lists. It's horrible! Now, you get 10 emails from the same company but from different area of their business.
AOL	It will be nearly impossible to screen all spam, yet allow legitimate emails from unknoown parties through the screening process. AOL's is ok, but they should continue to develop it.
AOL	My AOL keeps the spams (4 to 6 a day) in a separate section. It very seldom lets a new one through.
AOL	My problem is more with getting junk faxes. I don't know how to stop them. My fax is at home and I get junk faxed at 2:00 am.
AOL	No complaints with AOL's filtering process.
AOL	No way of anticipating next version of same spam.
AOL	somehow, aol keeps a lot of spam out -- i'm not sure, but i'm happy.
AOL	Spam went from 5 or 6 a day to about 1 a week, if that.
AOL	These machines come right from HELL-I am mandated to use these damn things when submitting INFO TO DOD - they are not safe when dealing with national and international security issues!!! When PROBABLY NEVER will they be safe?????
AOL	you can block or allow but NOT BOTH
Apple	Also have some kind of spam lock thru OPtimum Online. I only seem to get stock tips and mortgage spam.
Apple	Apple Mail works only on same address...so the same message maycome in from several addresses, which is annoying. I wish it would filter the subject, too.
Apple	It works very well, but I had to discard one email address recently when the spam reached in excess of 500/day. Apple Mail still filtered them out though.
Apple	Truth is, I'm not having much trouble with spam since I changed my email address. I try to be real careful who I give it to.
Apple	we use mac's
ASSP	It took a significant amout of time to set up
Audiotrieve InBoxer	Was getting 1000 spams per month before Inboxer. Now 30 per month and they ALL go into quarantine.
Barracuda Networks Spam Firewall	We have to run the rules fairly open to prevent critical business mail from being black holed as spam.
Barracuda Networks Spam Firewall	Works well for a long established .org domain, catches about 90-95% of the inbound spam.
Bayesian Mail Filter	This filter is built into our mail server, Merak Mail Server and works quite well.
bogofilter	Bad thing about bogofilter is the time needed to train it, but once it's done and it's set to learn from incoming mails it works like a charm. I get one false positive per month, and so far I didn't get any false negatives (I keep all my spam in separate folder, and I check periodically for non-spam mail) I thinking about doing bogofilter check at the MTA level, so it could reject spam while the mail is sent to me, currently it's working from procmail and is simply tagging the mails, and my MUA is putting them to different folders.
bogofilter	We also use Reverse blocking lists - they block 1000s of spams a day. I did not list the number of blocked spam senders.
Brightmail	When my host updates it it is fine, but that does not happen too often.
Choose your current filter	MailScanner was easy to install and setup. When used with good virus scanners, bayesian database, and rules_du_jour, it has a high 90% catch rate with very few false positives.
Choose your current filter	Mailwasher lets me see the subject and From fields, and I can delete the spam from the server before I download it. There's no filter like a rational mind!
CipherTrust IronMail	This is for my work account.
Cloudmark SpamNet	Important in my business that it generates absolutely ZERO false positives.
Cloudmark SpamNet	Most spam is caught by my ISP's filters (sonic.net)). Cloudmark pretty well finishes off the rest.
Cloudmark SpamNet	Anti-spam vendors flat out lie about their products. Cloudmark says on their web page that they say Cloudmark Desktop is the only solution on the market that is proven to automatically protect you from over 98% of spam, fraud and viruses, with zero false positives. That's bullshit. I installed it and immediately got a bunch of false positives. And if they have zero false positives, then why is there an unblock button and a user editable whitelist? If you really have zero false positives, you shouldn't need this. Is there a vendor who is honest about their product's capability?
Cloudmark SpamNet	once you block any spam email it removes them when they come in again this is a great piece of software I have 6 email accounts tied to my Outlook and it works on all of them...if a good email gets blocked I go unblock it and it never gets blocked again...again a great piece of software
Don't know	After setting up Cox's spam filters, I was able to can a personal program called IHateSpam by Sunbelt software, which did not work nearly as well. However, Sunbelt has two great IT newsletters for Win XP and Windows Server.
Don't know	Been getting lots of these stock manipulation ones that show an image file with the spam content and the text content is jibberish designed to fool filters. Stinky. Lots of labor to copy the images to into my complaints, which are offen multi-part any more. I figure it is a public service to diligently report them,however. Hope it is doing some good.
Don't know	I also use juno.com email which provides NO protection!
Don't know	I also use Microsoft Outlook Desktop to trap what Cox doesn't. So far 100% correnct, i.e no false positives, no false negatives.
Don't know	I don't know which filter I have, how can I find out? This email account of mine is run by GO DADDY and is preety good. I have another account w/ comcast and it is HORRIBLE--anything passes through.
Don't know	I get quite a bit of spam because I choose to list my email address on my website. Most of it is filtered out by Alpha Link. I get an average of 2 or 3 a day coming through.
Don't know	I use a web based e-mail service. I used to be a blue frog subscriber, which did the trick quite well.
Don't know	I work at a military facility and their spam software catches about 99% of spam mail.
Don't know	I'm not sure what filters are in place through our ISP. I know we had to take some off due to a lot of our clients being blocked inadvertantly by them.
Don't know	I'm on a Mac, so the spam filter must be through the Tiger Operating System
Don't know	Like your site. Have contacted the attorney Generals office of MD. to get the address of BULLSEYE Communications that was giving me a fit. Problem: SPAM E-Mails that come from someone using a false address (usually my own or a trusted site)
Don't know	Mailwasher is not an automatic filter; the software downloads sender, subject line, and whether there is an attachment into its interface, so I must manually delete spam before it downloads. I would much rather do this than depend on an automatic filter.
Don't know	My current solution hasn't, too my knowledge, trashed legitimate email along with the spam. For that, I am extremely happy. I think its a trade off. If the filter is too good it trashes wanted emails along with the spam. After a month or so of watching, I gave the ISP permission to trash the spam emails without trapping them in quarantine.Therefore, I cannot correctly answer your question below, and am just putting in a number so your system will accept an answer
Don't know	Need something that I do not have to pay for to block spam!
Don't know	Plaqued by e-mails selling sex drugs, drugs, stocks, refinancing. These are easy to get rid of by deleting. The spam popup ads (dating and sex services, free merchandise with voice barker, real estate, etc. that come in on the web are the real problem...keep reoccuring.
Don't know	RE: current filter. There is no selection for No Filter.
Don't know	the junk faxes have stopped, thanks for your efforts
Don't know	The only spam that is getting through is from some circle of creeps trying to interest me in financial offerings. They use all sorts of different email addresses.
Don't know	There is no question in my mind that Adelphia could do a better job. I get four and five a day addressed right to that address and that is an email address I have never given out, except to you. And I gave it to you because my public email address execaction@usa.net is doing a great job. They filter out 99.9% of the junk. But execation@adelphia.net keeps getting all kinds of spam every day which tells me USA.net has an effective filer in place and Adelphia does not.
Don't know	your e-maila came in as spam
DSPAM	Do not currently employ any filter but have been thinking about it. Would like to see your survey results. Thanks!
Earthlink SpamBlocker	2 layeras and a few of the current batch get thru. Every once in a while a non-spam (eg my phone bill)gets trapped until I white list. Hang the oes that use deliberate nonsense to beat the filters as they have NO right of claim of 'prior' relationship.
Earthlink SpamBlocker	99% of the spam senders that reach us use fictitious return addresses. If there was a new filtering program that delayed mail until the validity of a sender's address was verified, before delivering it to us, that would knock out almost all of it. And, if the new program allowed a person to identity the senders whose messages should always be immediately put through, that would be even better. I have designed such a program, but haven't had the time to find someone to write the code. If you have a good programmer, let's partner up.
Earthlink SpamBlocker	Eathlink is excellent for getting rid of virus emails but plain old junk email is still getting through and many times, the same email addrs. even after they have been noted as spam. This needs improvement
Earthlink SpamBlocker	I am in real estate, over half of the spam that I receive daily comes from my own industry. I get a total of between 50-70 spams a day even using my Norton and Total Access. Many of them are from Canada regarding priscriptions and vitimans others are regarding stocks to purchase others are the letters from foreigners looking for people to take their money, the Nigerian scam. though I get the emails from the people who i put into my address book, I still have to go through each reference line and try to decide if it is from someone I need to hear from or if it is spam. I know that I delete emails from people I truly need to hear from but in the volume that I get I have no choice.
Earthlink SpamBlocker	I am PLAGUED by spam. Someone uses my email address as a cover and sprays the world with it. Now I get zillions of rejected emails, some of which go to the junk file but many others show up in my mail box. And someone out there thinks it's me doing the spamming.
Earthlink SpamBlocker	I do get Phisher e-mails purporting to be from eBay and PayPal, and occasionally Verizon. These get through because they are forged addresses from allowed domains. It doesn't seem to be the same as spam, so I didn't count it in the answers below. I get 1 to 3 phishing messages per week, but Earthlink makes those easy to report too, with scamform.
Earthlink SpamBlocker	I still have to check the file suspect spam for possible messages that have been received from those with addresses not in my mailbox
Earthlink SpamBlocker	It is hard to believe that the IP do not try to block more of these spams since they clog up their system!
Earthlink SpamBlocker	It is too easy to click the wrong button and send spam to your in box rather than to confirm it as spam. You have to hit a confirm button to say yes, it's spam but not to move it to an in box.
Earthlink SpamBlocker	It works well, just still a hassle to have to wade through it all to find the good stuff. Email is not as much fun with all this junk.
Earthlink SpamBlocker	I've only got Spaminator set to medium because I moderator an e-mail list and don't want to have to keep looking in the spam folder to see if I've missed anything. And not knowing who will be submitting postings to the list, entering everyone in an on-line address book isn't an option (I download all e-mail to hard drive and let Eudora sort it into folders for me).
Earthlink SpamBlocker	This works for me because it will not allow anyone who is not in my address book to get through. I am sent daily a spam list which I can peruse to see if there is anything I want.
Earthlink SpamBlocker	Up until the beginning of this year, my eyes would get blurry weeding thru 50 spam messages a day looking for false positives in my quarantine box. I don't know what they did, but since January, I now only get about 6 spam messages a day, if that, in my quarantine box. I am VERY PLEASED!!
FastMail	I use fastmail at member level - not their advanced spam filter. Account was spam free for years, but lately I get ~3/day, which I report to spamcop. ~66% filtered to junk mail folder by screening for lack of my name in To: header. I have also set up many reject rules for certain keywords in From: header.
Firetrust Mailwasher Pro	My only real complaint is address spoofing. I don't like it when I get email 'from myself'.
GFI Mail Essentials	MailEssentials has every imaginable kind of filter and is very configurable. After fine tuning it works better than anything I've seen. If you don't get 98% effectiveness out of this product I suggest working with GFI tech support -- they're excellent.
GFI Mail Essentials	Your survey invitation was identified as spam, just FYI.
Google	email is filtered by spamcop to eliminate all: blind copies, known spam sources, harmful viruses, executable code, altered or fake headers. They do a great job.
Google	gmail does a good job of flagging potential phishing attacks, but the number of false negatives has been increasing
Google	Gmail does NOT allow fwd as attachment (to include full headers) for submittal outside spam reporting agencies such as Spamcop. manual, not automatic, cut/paste solution must be used -- not really acceptable.
Google	Google mail is great at handling spam. But sneakemail allows me the control to remove an email address that has been sold.
Google	Google mail is great at handling spam. But sneakemail allows me the control to remove an email address that has been sold.
Google	I appreciate your work on junk FAX. It is so expensive to my business in toner and paper and machine wear.
Google	I use gmail webmail. I do not use Outlook.
Google	I work at a web development company. We have our own servers, and I think everyone's computers use McAfee. Work related I tend to get more than when I'm at home (Mozilla/google mail) I use one email address (sheributtstadt@yahoo.com) whenever I have to fill out a form for an online purchase, etc. Only my family and a few friends who are internet savvy have my gmail address (my mom and her age group tend to be the ones who Fwd.Fwd... and let my gmail get out where it shouldn't be - I'm trying to train her to understand that makes you more vulnerable) Spam mail tends to only be thru yahoo.
Google	In my hotmail account I get about 12 spams a day. It's really awful. I am in the process of closing this account.
Greenview Data SpamStopsHere	SpamStopsHere is the best I've used yet, but I still wish there were something more effective and less prone to bounce legitimate mail. Community blacklists like Cloudmark are 100% worthless; *everyone* I know is blacklisted.
Guinever	I'm assuming the selection is misspelled & meant to be Guinevere. Guinevere is what we are using & works with our Novell Groupwise. Technically, behind the scenes, Guinevere uses Spam Assassin, but SA is integrated with Guinevere. The email numbers don't count 12000 per day that Guinevere deletes before spam filtering because they are addressed to non-existent users. I hate spam!!!
Hotmail	Hotmail used to offer solution to block a domain without having to open the email. Now, you have to open the email & then go to the Options setting to block the domain.
Hotmail	Hotmail was fine until about a week or two ago; then the spam started coming in like gangbusters.
Hotmail	I am nervous about sending suspected junk mail to my delete folder, as too many good emails are put into junk. I wish that phishing was automatically deleted.
Hotmail	i only use hotmail and it pretty much screens well to the junk mail box. I'd rather get none at all of course. I'd rather make the idiots sending it all suffer, most of all.
Hotmail	I use Hotmail's spam filter on my Hotmail accounts which works well - I rarely get junk mail in my inbox, almost all go to my Junk Mail folder. On my other account on my website (via MediaTemple.com) I use MailProtect and have the spam filtered to a junk mail folder. Spam is labeled as VL (very likely) or SL (somewhat likely) and a few pieces get through. The most problematic spam I currently have are Postmaster notify / Return to sender spam. I can't tell if they're legitimate bounces or spam. Thanks.
Hotmail	No spam from Eudora....but I'm very careful with this address @25 per day get through CoreComm
Hotmail	Sorry I don't know if I have a filter. I used to be on AOL and gone a ton of junk, now at Hotmail, I very rarely get junk and it's automatically put in junk folder.
iHateSpam	The Spam tools built into Outlook 2003 for are absolutely terrible. Most spam tools are also too confusing for the average joe - I don't want to study and become an expert, I just want to pay for a product that works.
K9	I wish that Robin Keir (K9 author) would commercialize his product and extend it to SSL/TLS for MSN or GMail.
Macintosh junk mail filter within MacMail	Given the enormous quantity of spam my wife gets on AOL, I find the mail.app filter highly effective. Almost zero good emails get sent to the junk folder (and they are easily found, if they do).
Macintosh junk mail filter within MacMail	I have no idea how many good or bad ones I get but spam is a major pain in the ass.
Macintosh junk mail filter within MacMail	I wish there were an easier way for folks to understand how to deal with these problems, particularly junk faxes. We need a Fight Junk Fax 101 type document for the average consumer. Thanks a lot for the work your organization is doing!!!
Macintosh junk mail filter within MacMail	Junk mail in my mailbox doesn't cost anything. Why is there no progress being made to get rid of junk faxes?
Macintosh junk mail filter within MacMail	Macintosh junk mail filter only works (for me) because I have created filter rules that junk IP addresses that have prefixes from common offending domains in the Received field of the full header. This means I miss some valid mail from some European, South American, and Asian domains. I junk most mail coming from the RIPE domain, for instance.
Macintosh junk mail filter within MacMail	So far, your your junk fax has not worked very well.
MailFrontier	It is good after you have it 'learn' what to look for. You also need to teach it what it is to release.
MailFrontier	Was using Norton Antispam 2 years ago, sucked big time and then switched to MailFrontier and am very happy with it.
Mailwasher Pro (Firetrust)	I don't have Mailwasher Pro, mine is the freeware version. I can't think of a better option for keeping _____ware out of my inbox.
Mailwasher Pro (Firetrust)	Keeps the mail on the server, I have 4 email accounts and it works great, by keeping the email on the server until I review it and decide what to download to my computer. It makes getting email possible when I am at my cottage on a 24K dial up account. I just delete or choose not to download any email with large attachements which would take forever to get at my Up North dial up speed.
Mailwasher Pro (Firetrust)	Look - no one likes spam, but I would rather get some spam than miss an important message. A product that guarantees complete spam removal or legislation against legitimate uses of email is wrong and should not even be considered.
Mailwasher Pro (Firetrust)	Mailwasher's bounce feature used to be effective at discouraging spam--noticed a huge reduction when I first started using it a few years ago. But spammers either ignore the bounces or have ways around it now--I spend a lot of time marking e-mails for deletion or bouncing in the Mailwasher window. Also, the filters work erratically--they started filtering legit e-mails that had none of the terms in my filters, so had to start over and not filter the bodies of the messages.
Mailwasher Pro (Firetrust)	The only problem with Mailwasher for me is that it would check multiple inboxes.
Mailwasher Pro (Firetrust)	The secret to using MailWasher Pro effectively is to build your own friends list, black list, and filters as you go along, as well as to use its learning feature. I have used MailWasher Pro for several years and have found it to be almost 100 percent effective in identifying spam. Because I can override the very-rare false positive before I tell MailWasher to process the mail, I never have a problem here. One of the features that I like best is the ability to delete messages directly from the server. Some spam messages also contain viruses. The ability to delete them before they ever reach my system gives me an extra layer of protection. It's been about a year since my antivirus software has had to intercept a downloaded virus.
Mailwasher Pro (Firetrust)	Three years ago I was receiving about 700-800 SPAM emails daily via mindspring.com. MailWasher managed very well. Now I use bellsouth.net and MailWasher and find reduced volume of SPAM, but continue to use MailWasher. Moving to Linux next month.
McAfee SpamKiller 6	I disabled McAfee Spamkiller on my PC because it wiped out my email downloads from my ISP. It doesn't play well with my system and I learned via the internet that it's a common problem.
McAfee SpamKiller 6	i run windows xp and mcafee completely screws up outlook and outlook express. i'm using norton virus scan right now and if i like it, i'll see what they have for spam and junk mail
McAfee SpamKiller 6	It doesn't work (for me) the way they say. I can't answer the questions below because I can't access the quarantine. Thanks for the help on fax... I now only get one or two a week. BIG improvement!
McAfee SpamKiller 6	Norton's anti-spam sucked. That's why I switched to McAfee
McAfee SpamKiller 6	spamkiller should support regular expressions, and also it should let you prioritize rules. As is, if any sender or subject is whitelisted, there's no way to kill anything it matches.
McAfee SpamKiller 6	Too much work to pick out the valid emails from junk folder each day
McAfee SpamKiller 6	with a dial-up connection, you cannot tell if it's working as it downloads in the background.
Message Labs	Works like a charm, very little spam.
Metscape built-in spam filter	My ISP pre-filters for spam and I also use some custom filters. I don't know how many my ISP catches, but when I did an experiment the number seemed enormous with no false positives. The spam I get usually is all text or a single graphic with no text.
Microsoft Exchange Server spam filter	Even though the false positive rate is quite low, missing an e-mail from a customer is unacceptable which means I still need to review all spam.
Microsoft Outlook desktop built-in	Alternatively, I've tried SpamCatcher, which was disappointing.
Microsoft Outlook desktop built-in	By using the high security setting and over time contructing a database of junk mail senders, the filter works well; I usually recieve 100 spam emails a day that are automatically moved to my junk mailbox, it is way out of hand.
Microsoft Outlook desktop built-in	Frankly I think Microsoft does nothing, absolutely nothing to stop spam. I get more obscene crap on my Hotmail account than I ever thought existed. You would think they could very easily filter out anything with body parts or vulgarisms in the subject line. That is why I suspect Hotmail of selling our addresses.
Microsoft Outlook desktop built-in	I don't use any, as I can't afford any false positives.
Microsoft Outlook desktop built-in	I don't use this address for much but straight business uses, many in Europe, so the address doesn't get around a lot.
Microsoft Outlook desktop built-in	I GET DOZENS OF STOCK PROMOTIONS EVERY DAY
Microsoft Outlook desktop built-in	I have Cox as an ISP. They have a server filter that traps about 50 spams/day that I never see unless I go to their spam folder to insure no false positives. The numbers below do not reflect these 50 items, but reflect only the mail I actually receive.
Microsoft Outlook desktop built-in	I have Office Outlook and it throws the spam into a 'junk mail' folder instead of my inbox.
Microsoft Outlook desktop built-in	I still have to inspect everything in the spam filter to see if it's accurate.
Microsoft Outlook desktop built-in	In the past two months, our company's email spam has increased to over 50 each day. I would really like to find a product that works to erradicate these bogus emails.
Microsoft Outlook desktop built-in	MailWasher Pro intercepts spam at the server level and requires that the user glance at the emails that are selected for deletion. It also has a learning function. Once an email is blown away; it's pretty much gone forever.
Microsoft Outlook desktop built-in	Microsoft Outlook's built-in worked very well until just recently--now I have 1-3 every day for viagra, software, rolexes. For awhile I was receiving Nigerian scam emails, but I kept sending them to spam@uce.gov and they seem to have stopped. I get an occasional phishing attempt and also send them to the govt.
Microsoft Outlook desktop built-in	Outlook only filters what you tell it to, even if it's set to high.
Microsoft Outlook desktop built-in	Since 90% of my Spam originates oversees, I would like an email spam solution, that could automatically detect foriegn Email, and bounce it back to whence it came.
Microsoft Outlook desktop built-in	Use Outlook to divert spam to trash folder. Must teach each e-mail address and spammers constantly use new ones. Not very useful
Microsoft Outlook desktop built-in	Well, I was happy to see that F said it sucks. It's exactly what I was thinking. I go thru a remote Citrix server, and I believe I am correct in saying that we use Outlook's built in with some sort of Ironport filter.
MXLogic Spam Blocking	MXLogic works very good for our company. I still do get about 4 spams per day in my inbox. And every so often I have one non-spam that gets caught in spam. MXLogic send out a weekly report of caught spam. I then find any non-spam emails and add the domain or user to the white list.
MXLogic Spam Blocking	Very user friendly, easy auto learning of addresses, easy to administer.
Norton Antispam	Comcast spam filter also in place, seems to work very well. Might be BrightMail?
Norton Antispam	I like the Earthlink solution, where if the sender is not in your address book, the email gets put inot a pending folder. The send is also sent a method of getting on the address book.
Norton Antispam	One drawback is having to check spam to ensure only spam was filtered out, and not an e-mail I did want to get.
Norton Antispam 2004	I do not receive my faxes through my computer, have a dedicated fax line and machine - nothing I can really do to stop them. On my computer I have antivirus set up with filters and usually don't receive any junk.
Norton Antispam 2004	Inconsistent results when used in conjunction with Outlook 2k3 - hard to verify that mail is accurately categorized as safe even when selected as such...
Norton Antispam 2004	NOrton is such a piece of crap, I use the following as a signature in all my Email: AVOID NORTON ANTI-SPAM: IT IS GARBAGE! It is very slow. Locks up machine while it acts. Constantly loses settings, causing it to either let spam through, or wrongly stop legitimate Email. It refuses to accept new settings and refuses to accept allow this orders. ANYTHING has got to be better than Norton Anti-Spam
Norton Internet Security 2006	I can send you the unfiltered spams I have received lately. I keep adding them to the list, but this particular site has devised a way to alter the message so they keep on coming.
Norton Internet Security 2006	I have Comcast as ISP, AOL as a service/email, etc. and Norton Anti Spam. AOL is the better than Comcast at filtering spam.
Norton Internet Security 2006	I have heard the Zone Alarm is the best out there and I am switching to that within teh next couple of days
Norton Internet Security 2006	I think Norton (Anti-Spam) Internet Security does an outstanding job of filtering spam and automatically sending it to the Norton Spam folder. I receive ~140 emails a day, the vast majority of which are spam. Norton catches 99% of them and very rarely kicks out legitimate email.
Norton Internet Security 2006	I was using a product called Spam Sleuth by a company called blue Squirrel that worked very well, but it got too costly to pay for a firewall, a spam filter, and an anti-virus, so we went with Norton Internet Security instead. good - but not as good as Spam Slueth. http://www.bluesquirrel.com/products/spamsleuth/
Norton Internet Security 2006	My server tries but says they can't keep up. I'm getting 10-30 spam emails a day even with both filters. Ugh
Norton Internet Security 2006	Norton occasionally classifies good messages as spam. It cannot seem to recognize the email equivalent of the junk faxes - stock tips etc.
Norton Internet Security 2006	Norton takes forever to scan, misses a lot. It takes forever (over 5 minutes)the process when you label something as spam using the button on the tool bar. It is so cumbersome it is useless. I will be going back to Eudora's filters.
Norton Internet Security 2006	Personally, I don't get any spam at work but that may be partially due to the fact that I'm careful about which sites I provide my email to. My A rating for Norton is probably a combinatin of my own efforts as well as that of the spam filter as I know work associates that are plagued by spam daily.
Norton Internet Security 2006	The program occasionally puts desired e-mail in the spam folder, but when I identify them as not being spam, it will still put them on the spam list at a later date.
Norton Internet Security 2006	Worse problem is having to go into multiple clicks to add a not spam address, and not being to able add an entire domain as OK.
Other	I am a Mac user. SpamSieve was nearly perfect until the recent wave of gif spams began.
Other	I drop all mail from some geographies (China, Korea, Taiwan, Nigeria) which helps a lot but is not practical for business use.
Other	I’ve tried a dozen different anti-spam products and services over the years – none have ever hit even 95% accuracy for more than a few days at a time. Presently, I subscribe to Frontbridge’s service. I’ve tried Cloudmark’s software. Microsoft’s Exchange 2003 built-in spam filter is worthless. SpamAssassin wasn’t bad, but wasn’t better than what I’ve described. We’ve got on the major brand appliances at work – I forget the brand. Not any better. The one before that was worse. All of the major ISPs have huge scale long-trained spam filters, and they still have a non-trivial false-positive and false-negative rate.
Other	I get a fair amount of spam per day, but my address has also been very, very widely distributed. The SpamAssassin settings are set pretty conservatively, so I could definitely get more spam filtered; however false positives are a very serious concern that I have to keep minimized. In the next year or so, I plan to alter the way our business e-mail is routed so that I can get much more aggressive with filtering on my direct address.
Other	I have an insane amount of traffic going through my mailboxes, so I'm a pretty good tester.
Other	I use several strategies- 1) I give every company I deal with a unique email address to communicate with me on. 2) I change my base email address I send under when I start to get spam, by incrementing the numerical portion. 3) On my own mail server I use black hole lists which are carefully selected including my own black list.
Other	Norton's overall scheme is noisy and intrusive. I intend to change next year. I also use Yahoo! on their email, by the way, and theirs is nearly 100% on target. Your survey is out of date in choices (Norton 2004?) and also assumes readers use one box. I have Outlook w/ Norton added in for my primary POP3 email, as well as three Yahoo! accounts, so the answers below vary depending on the address.
Other	The AOL spam filter works quite well for me.
Other	The challenge/response system works but some people don't respond to the challenge, so they miss. THis only works for personal email, not for a business solution.
Other	The numbers below are PERCENTAGES of our network email experience. We are not using the quarantine function.
Other	You need to train the software for a few weeks, and make sure valid addresses are in your address book. Otherwise, it's good.
Other/homebrew	A good Solution. Also used in a hopital enviroment.
Other/homebrew	also use Groupwise at work. It blocks about 95% of the spam, but it is a fast learner.
Other/homebrew	Catches about 40% - 60%
Other/homebrew	Death to Challenge/Response systems!!!
Other/homebrew	Downside: I am unaware of the amount of spam that is filtered from my email. Upside: I have to empty my spam from hotmail/gmail/etc. but not from my road runner, as it is never received.
Other/homebrew	Eudora lets me define my own spam filters. Before that I used Yahoo (my ISP), which claims that I can train their filter. I did with great care but at some point the results got worse and worse. I quit when Yahoo classified 17 good e-mails as junk.
Other/homebrew	Horrible for a free program. Made computer crash and everything. Trying to train this program was like trying to eat broken glass. Very unpleasant.
Other/homebrew	I also use Juno web-email and their filter is pretty good too.
Other/homebrew	I am not a heavy emailer, the spams stick out
Other/homebrew	I don't really care for filters as they just put emails in another folder that you have to go through later. I wish there was something that would bounce emails or make it appear that the spam emails were bounced so that they would be removed from spammer's lists
Other/homebrew	I have a number of e-mail addresses for different purposes. One provider (Excite) puts things into a spam folder, instead of deleting directly. Only rarely does it move soemthing into the spam box that shouldn't be there 9and is represented below). I have no idea how many e-mails Cox may delete before they get to me, but I don't want them delivered because I didn't find any listed as spam when I was taking all e-mails Cox considered spam and deleting them after review. Most of the spam that comes through Cox is deleted before I get it, but I still get at least 20 per day that get past its sensors and Netscape (my e-mail cleint) suggests is spam. Even then, Netscape still misses some and delivers them to my inbox instead of the trash folder. Overall, I think I'm doing better than most - especially since I do not have a separate spam killing software with which to deal.
Other/homebrew	I have ORFEE configured on my Exchange Server to only accept messages from known (whitelisted) senders and/or IP addresses. I use e-mail aliases to receive mail from web sites like junkfax.org where I don't know the exact sender or IP address. I've only gotten 2 spams in the past 2 years, and they came from two of my alias accounts. Bounces are real-time in the SMTP session so I never have undeliverable bounce messages. My filter does NOT look at content and I do NOT have a quarantine to review. Unknown senders receive NDRs from THEIR SMTP server telling them to call me so I can add them to my whitelist. If unknown senders won't call, I don't want their e-mail !!!
Other/homebrew	I receive several per day. It's almost as though Adelphia isn't even running a spam filter. I contacted Adelphia and was told that they only act on spam reports for spam that originated on their network. They told me to use www.spamcop.com to determine whom to send my complaints to.
Other/homebrew	I use Microsoft Outlook Message Rules to successfully rid some spam that has gotten through the filter, but I can't seem to eradicate those daily nuisance pump and dump stock spams that are embedded in the message using jpeg images. Any suggestions would be appreciated, thanks.
Other/homebrew	I use multiple services depending on the server. i.e. My company server is protected by Postini. I use pobox.com for other business email and I'm not sure what they are using for Spam protection. I also use the U of Washington servers and they have thier own filter methods. I have maintain a Hotmail account for year and they finally got Spam filtering right by letting users block anything that isn't White Listed. I back up everything with SpamKiller. I was a beta tester years ago for the first version of SpamKiller, long before McAfee purchased the program from the programmer. I get an occassion Spam thru the pobox.com Spam filters, Postini appears to trap just about everything.
Other/homebrew	it is free, and works with almost any virusscanner
Other/homebrew	It rocks. Very flexible and very high performance.
Other/homebrew	It took awhile for the tool to train. But it is catching better than 99% of all spam, and very few false positives without any manual tweeks.
Other/homebrew	Most spam filters remove messages without a subject. In some cases, I could miss a worthwhile message from a less sophistcated sender.
Other/homebrew	Most spams are eliminated through greylisting. It makes a huge difference. RBLs get second place. I wish SORBS weren't quite as shotgun as they are; otherwise they'd be one of the best RBLs out there. Just too many false positives when I use SORBS as an RBL.
Other/homebrew	My roadrunner does not block spam at all even though they advertise they do and AOL send my good mail to quarantine while it allows the spam through the majority of the time.
Other/homebrew	My webmail @ucla.edu has a spam filter that in the past 24 hours filtered out 21 of 29 messages.
Other/homebrew	of course, I don't go to websites that may end up with spam, pop ups or other unwanted items.
Other/homebrew	Our spam solution filters out hundreds of spam emails every day with never a false positive.
Other/homebrew	Perhaps the performance is so poor because I have to enable the spam system. I don't know. It should be enabled by default IMO.
Other/homebrew	Spamfighter is free for outlook express
Other/homebrew	Spare me the endless Viagra offers! aaaargh!
Other/homebrew	The below figures are totals across all accounts for a mailserver handling about a dozen domains and about a hundred and twenty-five users.
Other/homebrew	The company we are with has cut the number of SPAMS that we receive probably in half. However, they also allow others to reach our inbox with the marking SPAM on them which I don't understand and then others which look obvious to me just arrive in the inbox anyway. My biggest gripe is that there is no way to talk to this company. I have e-mailed them and they don't seem to reply back. I think two-way communication could help us both in combatting SPAM.
Other/homebrew	the filter in Entourage (MS Office for Mac) is superior to the filter in Apple's Mail application
Other/homebrew	The spam that seems to get through at home and at work are the stock offerings and financial tips.
Other/homebrew	The worst I've experienced of any ISP. Not only is it lousy at filtering spam, but it actually attracts and sponsors junk mail from all types of marketers, including cyberdating, mortgage loans, online college degrees, viagra, directs it into your inbox, and doesn't allow you to block the addresses or even report it as spam. Juno encourages and sponsors spammers. Unbelievable but true.
Other/homebrew	This comment is about your survey. The last two questions start out saying you want the errors per DAY, but then refer to per week. Confusing.
Other/homebrew	This is a blacklist ALL mail, except whitelisted addresses or domains solution. False positives are people not on my permitted sender list, that have a web-based form to request permission. I LOVE this solution - NO maintenance.
Other/homebrew	this is a test
Other/homebrew	Using a combination of a spam filter provided by my ISP and Incredimail's junk mail filter subscription service. The ISP filter blocks some good emails and lets some spam through; the Incredimail filter catches most spam that sneaks through. I wish there was a way to block spammers that spoof your email address so the spam looks like you sent it yourself.
Other/homebrew	You should add the option for people to say they don't use a spam filter. I don't, because it might stomp messages from senders I want.
PopFile	Popfile can do more than just filter. Out of idle curiousity I was interested in how many phishing emails I receive. I trained Popfile to report spam and phisihing separately. They both get rejected, but now, for my own idle purposes, I see them divided into two heaps. I also see that the filter is very good at identifying the phishing, with few getting through, while occasionally the odd spam does penetrate to my inbox.
Postini	I also report spam via SpamCop.net. (both spam that gets caught by Postini, and those that get through.) Also, my postini monitored address forwards to a Gmail account, which does its own quarantining.
Postini	I have to review the junk and delete. When you report them to the sending ISP nothing happens. When you report the nasty scam site they are spamming for nothing happens. Just a never ending problem
Postini	I wish Postini offered a retail product/service.
Postini	It is very hard to submit spam that bypasses the filter to postini for them to evaluate and improve their product. You have to copy and paste it into a text document and send it as an attachment. I suspect very few users at my company do this as it is too time consuming. There should be some way we can just forward spam to an address which will evaluate them for characteristics which can be added to the filter.
Postini	Postini works well, and the spam that does get through are obvious and can be deleted without fuss.
Qurb	Qurb scans user defined folders and adds senders to a whitelist. For a few weeks you need to add/block senders of e-mail accordingly, but after that, you're relatively safe/free from spam.
Qurb	The company I work for also has a SPAM filter in its firewall but, not surprisingly, some SPAM still gets through. Qurb does catch everything that makes it through the initial gauntlet so I have to give it a thumbs up!
Qurb	What is the most inexpensive anti-spam software?
RBL lists	I don't see false positives, the sender sees a 5xx reject notice. (This it the intentional result.)
Sophos PureMessage	Users have little or no control over the spam filter. It's set by the administrators. Users can forward spams to the admin, but most users consider this to be too much trouble. My inbox is not one of the email addresses that gets much spam. Other inboxes in our organization get much more spam because they have been advertised on the net. We sre using Microsoft Outlook and Exchange.
SpamArrest	I am a one-person operation. The Mailwasher free ware was great but in the end I went to SpamArrest because there was nothing to tweak and it works great. The down side of SpamArrest is that you pretty much have to whitelist things yourself as many people are cautious about the verification challenge - although harmless spammers will actually answer the challenge (so I get one of those now and then).
SpamArrest	SpamArrest does a very good job of keeping spam out. However, some legitimate correspondents either do not or cannot receive their verification messages, or ignore them. So it's still necessary to check the quarantined list a few times a day, to find the e-mails you really did want that did not get through.
SpamAssassin	For reasons I can't even guess at, SpamAssassin has become LESS reliable under Mdaemon release 9 than it was under Mdaemon release 8 (Mdaemon is a Windows-based email server). The moment I updated to Mdaemon release 9, it suddenly started filtering things it had never previously filtered, and similarly, it stopped filtering things that it had always filtered in the past. Go figure.
SpamAssassin	I actually consider this an excellent product and offer it to my clients; however, my volume of incoming mail renders it statistically impossible to prevent 100% of spam from getting through to me.
SpamAssassin	I need to reconfigure so all my outgoing mail does not get spammed.
SpamAssassin	I received 11,341 spam in April (no exaggeration) only 31 got through to my inbox.
SpamAssassin	I run a company which offers email service including spam filtering with SpamAssassin plus some additional rules and some of our own filters as well as virus filtering. I'd be happy to work with you to help provide an email solution to your users. Please contact me at the email above or phone 408-850-8111. I'm also very interested in your evaluation of different spam filtering solutions, so we may improve our own. Data below is for my personal email account, run using my company's mail service. I did not include a separate account where I only get mailing lists, since it will show an unusually high volume of good mail, vs. spam.
SpamAssassin	I set spamassassin's threshold a little higher (allows a little more spam through) and also installed several custom rules to decrease the scores on any messages with certain words likely to relate to my company's products. Yes, this is in addition to the bayes stuff spamassassin does automatically. I absolutely can not have an false positives, and even though these settings let some spam through, the false positive rate really is zero.... unlikely many other spam filters. I also set up two quarantine folders, one for spam that got a score close to the threshold, and the other for spam that got a very high spam score from spamassassin. The almost folder gets about 20-30 per day, which is a lot more managable to double-check the filter is working, rather than sifting through 200-250 of the very bad spam in the other folder, every single day.
SpamAssassin	I use qpsmtpd + spamassassin + spambayes
SpamAssassin	I use SpamAssassin (which is on the university server) along with a filter on Thunderbird, so all email with an X score that is rated as 'high' goes to the Junk folder in Thunderbird. A couple of times a day I delete the contents of that folder.
SpamAssassin	I'm perfectly happy with SpamAssassin, even though I still get several spams in my inbox. I use a Mac, and the Apple Mail program's filter captures the remainders, fo rthe most part. It's entirely manageble, which was not the case before I started using SpanAssassin.
SpamAssassin	I'm using spamassassin + bayes + greylisting + sa-learn (via public folders)
SpamAssassin	Seems to do a good job of learning. Spammers figure out how to get around it, but it catches up quickly.
SpamAssassin	Spam Assassin requires some tuning and maintenance
SpamAssassin	viagra ads are the worst to ferret out because of scrambles in the spelling and forged headers. This is killing business that want to receive email from new prospects.
SpamBayes	I don't like that I have to download my messages first. I'd prefer a server end solution
SpamBayes	I get just enough false hits (sent to spam file when it isn't or visa versa) that still need to review my spam file once a day to make sure there were no errors. This kinda defeats the purpose of the filter but I still rate it high because I know that it works about as well as I can hope for.
SpamBayes	I get just enough false hits (sent to spam file when it isn't or visa versa) that still need to review my spam file once a day to make sure there were no errors. This kinda defeats the purpose of the filter but I still rate it high because I know that it works about as well as I can hope for.
SpamBayes	Spambayes works better than some commerical solutions and is unabtrusive and lightweight.
SpamBayes	Why isn't spam deleted at the ISP level. Spambayes does a pretty good job but I still have to check the spam folder to see if it is spam - I don't want to see it at all.
SpamCop (spamcop.net)	Have had this service for a long time and have worked to improve it. Company has on several computers. IT person familiar with it. Continuing to improve with it.
SpamCop (spamcop.net)	I don't fault Spamcop for not getting everything. I've had the same email address for 10 years and its posted all over the net. They do a great job!
SpamCop (spamcop.net)	I have several email accounts; Comcast is spam-free for me so far. The comments below are for other accounts.
SpamCop (spamcop.net)	SpamAssassin catches most of the spam at SpamCop.net for me.
SpamCop (spamcop.net)	Spamcop seems to be as good as it gets. It is only a minor pain and I feel like I'm making a difference, the community is working for the betterment of all. I have 5 email addresses filtered through Spamcop, it does a good job for me.
SpamCop (spamcop.net)	There are still a few emails that get through and a few that get tagged as spam that are not, but it really cuts down the load.
SpamSieve	It was Ok for a while and then it got overwhelmed (or I did). I finally turned it off. There is filtering on my various IPs.
SpamSieve	my biggest issue is the spammer who has spoofed my email address so I get tons of bounces. I have made a few changes to my server but this is still driving me a little nuts.
SurfControl E-mail Filter 4	Surprisingly good results, all in all, but there's room for improvement.
Symantec AntiVirus for SMTP	everything international gets spam attached on the way in
Symantec AntiVirus for SMTP	I get these stupid stock things that you cant block and i dont do drugs and i dont need viagra and my hair is still intact
Symantec Mail Security	get male enhancement stuff, Nigerian scam, vitamins and some vacation material. Overall, manageable. Biggest problem is clogging on-line mailbox when traveling.
Thuderbird built-in spam filter	I also use Postini which works well for non-alias, single email accounts. If you are a postmaster or use multiple account aliases, Postini is useless.
Thuderbird built-in spam filter	It takes a little bit of time to train the filters to respond correctly to spam.
Thuderbird built-in spam filter	The survey fails to account for the fact that typically multiple filters are used (say SpamAssassin on the server and Thunderbird's built-in filter on the client; or multiple filters on the server), not to mention users may deal with multiple ISPs (I run a custom filter on my own server, and use Gmail for other domains).
Trend Micro PC-cillin	A few years back, when I switched from AOL to Verizon but before I had the Trend products installed, I noticed an immediate and major reduction in spam. After I installed my current system (which came with Trend pre-installed) the spam has become so rare that Outlook is now frustrated and picks out legit emails (apparently at random) to classify as spam. I find I have to keep the Outlook filter set as low as possible or I lose the good stuff down the chute.
Trend Micro PC-cillin	The above address is my private one, given only to friends and family, and it had been virtually spam-free (for about four years) until recently, when it's been flooded by pump-and-dump stock schemes. I've written to RCN about the sudden explosion, but of course have had no response. (My Yahoo address, which I use for e-commerce and other public exposure, gets on average 15-20 spams per day.)
Trend Micro PC-cillin	Trend Micro PC-Cillin AND Norton Internet Security are pretty much useless. My ISP's spam filter (DSLExtreme, not a choice on your list) is excellent - ay least 95% effective. YOUR e-mail was in the spam folder. I get a massive amount of spam every day (in 5 different mailboxes); most is caught by DSLExtreme. I forward all of it to spam@uce.gov, but they don't even look at it.
TrendMicro InterScan Suite	Until I was able to install Trend Micro, I resorted to unplugging my fax machine unless someone called and notified me that they were sending something important.
Vircom modusFate 3 or Modusmail 4	We actually use GWGuardian (www.gwtools.com), which is a modified version of Modusgate. It's pretty expensive, but does a very good job with very little administration. We're evaluating Barracuda as a replacement. Doesn't work as well out of the box, but with user input and tuning, may actually work better. Saves us about $20K/year over GWGuardian.
Xwall	great price for unlimited users
Yahoo	99% of spam is caught by Yahoo's filter.
Yahoo	I also have a Gmail account which receives no spam what so ever. Gmail ROCKS!! A+. Sorry about below... I never count them so I really have no idea.
Yahoo	I also use Outlook for email, and spam filter is sub-par
Yahoo	I rated Yahoo Excellent because that was the result I used to get from 5+ years ago until about 6 weeks ago. However, I believe the reason I started getting spam more recently is because I divulged my email address on a certain website and those (and related ones) are the spams that are getting through. So the results I am entering below are for the former time, when I wasn't getting this additional spam that is really my fault.
Yahoo	I use aol on one computer and yahoo on another. the aol filters out more than I'd like - it won't accept emails from my friends who have hotmail accounts. the yahoo was good for a long time but now tons of spam gets thru daily. the following results are for the yahoo account which is my main mail account.
Yahoo	It makes errors in both directions--i.e. both false positives and false negatives--though it lets more spam through as valid messages than it does incorrectly classify valid messages as spam.
Yahoo	It marked your E-Mail as Bulk...
Yahoo	My ISP just identifies some mail as junk, whereas Yahoo and gmail isolate that mail it perceives as junk.
Yahoo	My Yahoo filter learns - the longer I have the system, the fewer spam messages I get - Lately there are only one or two spam messages a WEEK that get past the filter. It is even MORE rare for the filter to trash a legitimate message - at least that I've caught. My confidence in the filter has grown to the point where I sometimes don't even scan the junk folder for legit messages before I just dump it.
Yahoo	The majority of spam is from places that sell prescription drugs such as Viagra, , Cialis, Ambien and other drugs. My kids (age 11 & 8) also get these annoying emails which I think is totally inappropriate. Especially when there are renderings or comments on Viagra. Another one is for stocks. How do I get off their email lists?
Yahoo	The number of spams I do get in Yahoo are routed to the Bulk folder and are easy to deal with (delete).
Yahoo	The Yahoo! filter is great for blocking much spam, but seems utterly ineffective against other types. I'm not sure what algorithm they use, but it's not the best.
Yahoo	This JunkFax.org email for the survey was filtered into the spam box. But I can still peruse the spam to see if I want it.
Yahoo	Very rarely a legitimate (non-spam) e-mail will be placed in the Yahoo Bulk folder.