Spam Sleuth 2.0
Software Review by Fred LoboschefskiSpam Sleuth is very user friendly and was installed without any problems at all.
When installing, make sure you are actively connected to the Internet and then register Spam Sleuth to activate the program. Next you run the configuration wizard to configure your preferences.
Spam Sleuth is able to eliminate Spam in two different ways; POP3 Proxy mode and polling mode. In most cases POP3 Proxy mode is the preferred mode to use. In Proxy mode Spam Sleuth always analyzes ALL of your messages. Timing between Spam Sleuth and your e-mail program is not a concern. Messages are only downloaded once from your ISP.
You don’t have to store your password with Spam Sleuth. The disadvantage is that you must change your incoming (POP3) server setting in your e-mail program to’ localhost’, but this can be done automatically by the configuration wizard.
Spam Sleuth uses a collection of Analyzers, including: Friends, Spammers, To, Good words, Bad words, Profanity, Subject Attachments, Charsets, HTML Volume, Bouncer, and others to detect and eliminate spam e-mail before you can even see the messages.
How does Spam Sleuth defeat spam?
Each of the Spam Sleuth Analyzers: Friends, Spammers, To, Good Words, Bad Words, Profanity, Subject, Attachments, Charsets, HTML Volume, etc looks at your e-mail in a different way and can assign points. The more points an e-mail message gets the more likely it is to be deemed as spam. The least points an e-mail receives the more likely it is a real message. Think of it as a contest and each Analyzer is a judge. Every judge looks at the e-mail message and assigns points. Then all of the points are added together to create an overall total. More points are bad and less points is good.
Configuring the Analyzers lets you set your own personal tolerances for spam. The friends dialog let you add e-mail address for your friends, family, co-workers and mailing list. Mailing Lists let you by-pass the analysis for the mailing for which you have subscribed. Spammers supports limited wild cards. You could * at the beginning or end of a word. Example *@bbb.comm would block all e-mails that end in @bbb.com. The Profanity looks for the really bad words. Charset looks for the gibberish and the annoying Korean and Chinese letters spam. Spam Sleuth has a “bounce” whereby spam email would be returned to sender as if it was never delivered.
There are many anti-spam programs available today, and I am not sure any of them would be 100% effective. But from what I have seen with using Spam Sleuth from Blue Squirrel Software, this product more than fills the bill.System Requirements are as follows:
· 486 or faster processor
· Windows 95/98,NT, Me, 2000/XP
· 8 MB of RAM
· At least 2 MB of hard drive space
· A POP3 e-mail server ( which are provided by most companies and ISP’s)
· Requires Web2POP for Hotmail (free), AOL, MSN, Yahoo (free), Excite (free).
Spam Sleuth is available at www.bluesquirrel.com for $29.95
A user group special price of $14.95 is offered at www.bluesquirrel.com/usergroup