Unsolicited email has become well more than a casual nuisance - it has become a productivity and security threat over the years. In fact recent reports show that SPAM email now accounts for about 95% of all email traffic on the Internet today.

However there is hope for your inbox. There are a plethora of great tools that can help you cut out SPAM for good. Here are a few tools that can help you fight SPAM on your computer.

Cross Platform

These tools are available to you whether you use a Windows, Mac or Linux computer.

Thunderbird - This is an alternative email client to Outlook that you can use for managing your contacts and email messages. One of the advantages is that it has good SPAM filtering tools built-in that learn how to better classify SPAM as you use it. It also has a great list of add-ons that can improve the way the applications function according to your needs. However it may not be a good option for someone who has been used to using Outlook.

There is also a new application that is based on Thunderbird (and a few other applications) that is up and coming. It is called Spicebird, and it is supposed to be an improvement on Thunderbird’s abilities. However it is very young and may not be ready for prime-time use. It is only currently available for Windows and Linux.

Both of these are free and Open Source options.

SpamBayes - This is a great filter tool that is able to learn as is goes and gets better and better at identifying SPAM the longer you use it. The algorithms used in this application set are the basis for most of the other tools listed in this article. It does integrate as a plugin for Outlook, however it seems to be designed for the more savvy user and may not be a good option for everyone. It is also a free and Open Source option.

For Windows

There are many free and non-free options in this space that supplement Outlook. However many of these are either too complicated or offer little to no improvement.

Spamihilator - This is one of the best tools I have seen for Windows to actively stop SPAM. It is independent of the mail client and works equally well with Outlook as it does with other mail clients. It is kind of like a maid, it checks your email for you and clears out the SPAM and then when you (Outlook) check it later all of the SPAM is already cleaned up. It also learns and gets better as you use and automatically reconfigures Outlook to send mail through it. Plus it is a free application.

For Mac

Mail - This mail client comes included with every copy of OSX and it has a built-in Junk filtering program that slowly learns how to better classify SPAM as you teach it by marking email as SPAM. I have been experimenting with this feature for a while now and it seems to be somewhat of a slow learner.

For Linux

Pretty much all of the mail clients for Linux have built-in SPAM filtering tools including the popular applications like Evolution and KMail. Another feature of many of these mail clients is that they are designed to integrate with other filtering programs as a supplement to their built-in features.

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This is an article I originally wrote for COSE Mindspring. I have posted it here for personal archival purposes. You can find the original article here.