Labs

When we last looked at SafetyBar in Shopper June 2004, it was called SpamNet. Since then it has been updated and rebranded, but it still uses the same system for detecting spam, which is a collaborative community of users who report spam messages to a central database. Those users gain positive reputations if they are fast and accurate with these submissions, and good reputations ensure that their future submissions are weighted more heavily. New users won't be able to make such an impact on the system until they prove themselves.

There are versions for Outlook and Outlook Express, and SafetyBar

That said, other programs can be configured over time to increase their accuracy, whereas Cloudmark's program can't. While you can report spam, and so become involved in the spam-fighting community, the temptation is not to bother. And if people start to lose interest, the system will become less accurate.

There are very few options to make your own changes to the setup, although you can at least create your own whitelist of friends' email addresses. Of the dedicated anti-spam tools, this is the most expensive. When detecting spam it very narrowly beats the more expensive PC-cillin, which costs around the same after the first year. But PC-cillin also has a firewall and anti-virus protection, which makes it much better value in the long run.