A spam filter is a web-based program which helps to prevent spam e-mail from entering your inbox. Password filter, blacklist and, whitelist filters, challenge/response filter, rules-based filter, community-based filter, and adaptive/Bayesian filter are among the common types of spam filters used nowadays.
Password filters are the basic form of filtering commonly used. These block e-mails without password in the subject line. E-mails containing a pre-set password in the subject line alone are accepted. But, this filter might sometimes block desirable messages also.
Blacklist is another filtering solution which blocks e-mail messages from banned senders. Whitelist filters accept messages only from approved senders. Challenge/response filters such as MailFrontier and Matador will not accept an unapproved sender's e-mail messages until response to challenge arrives. As this filter has some serious drawbacks, it is not considered a perfect solution for spam.
Rules based filter is another popular type of spam filter which blocks mail depending on a pre-determined set of rules. These have a tendency to reject numerous legitimate e-mails. Sophisticated rules based filter solutions such as Spamassassin are more effective. These help to catch 90-95% of spam by finding exclamation points, specific words and phrases, malformed header, and odd punctuations.
A community-based filter, SpamNet is another effective tool, which blocks mail based on community agreement that it is junk. When a user receives a spam message, the message is mailed to the central server, where a fingerprint of the information is stored. The filter blocks the message from user's inboxes, when a number of people have voted the message as spam.
Adaptive / Bayesian filter is among the most popular and new type of filters available now. These utilize a mathematical formula to examine the content of a message. This filter learns user's preferences and accepts only the messages, which are desirable.
Spam Filters provides detailed information on Spam Filters, Email Spam Filters, Free Spam Filters, Best Spam Filters and more. Spam Filters is affiliated with Spam Blockers.
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