Lab

Anti-Spam Software

Spam is no longer just a nuisance. It is at epidemic proportions. Over 80 per cent of all email is unsolicited advertising, according to anti-spam companies. This figure is backed up by the email received by our spam-monitoring systems at Shopper. Those who use email only occasionally are in a worse situation, because they may receive an even larger proportion of spam, compared to the trickle of real email.

Long gone are the days when you could weed out a few spam messages manually. If you still do this, and it takes you less than half an hour per session, then you are in the lucky minority. Fortunately the rest of us don't have to spend our lives dragging messages about Viagra, fake Rolexes and hot teens to our Deleted Items folder. Anti-spam software can take the pain out of using email, automatically sorting through the annoying and often offensive messages, and sending them to quarantine folders or deleting them directly.

You don't have to spend a fortune, either. We've tested a wide range of anti-spam products, ranging from internet security suites costing nearly £50 to free utilities that are remarkably accurate, although maybe not quite as easy to set up. Read our reviews, invest in some anti-spam software and discover a life free of depressing spam avalanches.