Note: This review addresses v6 of the software.

The Internet--and your inbox--are drowning in spam. Clearing out the mess takes precious time, and spam often contains Trojans or viruses which can harm or even destroy your computer. Simplistic keyword filters fail often. SPAMFighter Pro uses much more complex algorithms to decide what sort of mail is worth your time and what is trash.

To test it, I set it up to get my Google Mail, so I could compare its filter to Gmail's built-in functions. I also moved 50 messages from Gmail's "Spam" box to its inbox, to force SPAMFighter to work on a large load of real junk mail. Overall, SPAMFighter is almost--but not quite--as good as Gmail's filters, which are the best I've personally encountered. It pegged 36 out of the 50 'known spam' messages. Not bad, but it also marked several good messages as spam--and as valuable messages can be lost, false positives are often worse than receiving one ad for herbal Viagra. However, SPAMFighter allows you to unblock messages, and builds its whitelists and filters based on user response, so the program 'learns' as more people use it.

The program is designed to work only with Microsoft's mail products: Outlook, Outlook Express, and Windows Mail. For those using these programs, SPAMFighter is an effective, user-friendly way to keep your inbox clean of junk. Just be sure to check the 'spam' folder every so often to make sure that nothing of value has been tossed aside.

Note: There are two versions, Standard and Pro. Standard is free to use, but contains ads. This trial version of Pro reverts to Standard if not paid for within 30 days.

--Ian Harac