Ward off unwanted e-mail with three spam-blocking apps

May 1, 2001

Dangerous Debby wants to do you! Make a million dollars working from home! Free cable descramblers! Click here for nasty pictures!

No doubt, your e-mail inbox is as clogged up with such junk, dreck, and spam as mine is. And no doubt you'd like to consign the senders to eternal torment just as much as I would. Well, I can't help you there, but I can help you fight back against spammers and take back your inbox. I've found three great antispamming tools in ZDNet Downloads that'll get rid of the crud in your mail.

SpamKiller checks all your inboxes for spam, and lets you decide whether to kill it automatically or hold it for review. It includes a big list of known spammers and lets you create new rules and add new names to the list. (Shareware/Win95-98-NT)

Sam Spade does the seemingly impossible--it helps you track the true source of the spam. Armed with that info, you can send complaints to the spammer's ISP. This great program also includes a variety of other info-gathering tools, such as Whois, Traceroute, and more. (Shareware/Win95-98-NT)

PowerFilter for AOL 4.0/5.0 will filter out spam from America Online's puny e-mail software. I'm no great lover of AOL, but if you're stuck using it, this one's a good way to kill spam. (Shareware/Win95-98-NT)

All three of these programs will help do away with spam. About putting spammers into eternal torment--believe me, I'm trying to figure that one out. As soon as I do, I'll let you know.