Computer Junkyard – Does Spam Filtering Really Help?

In an age dominated by computers, the Internet, and email, spam filtering has become very important to a lot of people. Perhaps the biggest push against spam is coming from the Internet Service Providers (ISP’s). For them, spam is a problem because it drives away new customers. It also clogs their servers up and slows things down altogether. To help, they subscribe to spam prevention and filtering programs as well as offer spam filtering for their customers use. Does the spam filtering work, though? It does, but depending on the spammer and the spam filter it works to varying degrees.

One ISP offers a spam filter that works on color-coding. Your email messages are marked in colors representing three different kinds of senders. The types are known senders, unknown senders, and known bulk emailers. The same ISP offers a button that allows you to report the spam directly to them. ISP’s use these filters to allow the option to report the spam so that they can track down and pursue action against the companies. Spam filters such as these are fairly effective, but are more so when users do report the spam to the ISP. The more spammers they can place on their list, the more they can filter out before it hits your inbox.

A second ISP uses software they developed. The software is an intelligent program of sorts. It identifies the spam based on its intuitive nature and characteristics of spam emails. It then intercepts the email and sends it straight to a junk mail box. This particular filter program has, so far, proven to be highly effective. It has shown itself to be even more so than the three-category filter used by the other ISP.

Another spam filtering method is a downloadable program. Downloadable programs are generally available online to be downloaded onto your machine. There are hundreds of free spam-filtering programs available on line. Many of these download programs are based on rules. Rules-based means that these programs filter the emails by watching for certain words or programming patters. The software will look for certain words (Viagra, etc.). It may also look for emails with excessive HTML in the body of the message, which may show that it is a spam email. Such programs could be classified as “better than nothing,” but overall are not real effective in eliminating spam from your email inbox. Most companies who spam know how to get around the free downloadable software applications with rules.

Another type of spam filter is one that is downloadable at a cost. In this particular filter, there is a peer-to-peer network involved. When the filter misses a spam email, it messages all of the other users of the program to catch that address in the future.

Yet another filter, that is actually very effective, bounces the emails back. They are returned to the sender of the spam as “undeliverable.” The idea is that perhaps the sender will think the email address is bad and remove it from the email list they are using. This type of program has proven to be very effective and can be had for less than $30.

There are some programs that will filter the spam and automatically send a complaint to the spammer’s email as well as his ISP. The problem with this type of software is that even though it sounds like a good idea, it is a bit counterproductive. Spammers often hijack email accounts to send their mail, which means the complaints end up going to completely innocent and ignorant emailers.

The world we live in is becoming increasingly reliant on email as a mode of communication, both personally and in the business world. As with any technology or advancement, there are those who look to use it as a way to make a quick buck. Though you may not see how, spammers do what they do because either it helps them make money or they think it will. Spam filtering software, because of this is becoming more and more popular. It is not always the most effective means of curbing spam, but in many cases it does a good enough job to be worth having. Save yourself a lot of time and inbox space by getting a good spam filtering software application.