* Readers give their views on anti-spam tools at the desktop
My recent article on the potential utility of desktop-based anti-spam tools generated a fair amount of response.
Here’s a sampling:
* “I’m a bit surprised by catching spam at the desktop. In your article and in your previous articles you gave enough arguments NOT to bring the spam to the desktop level. If people have a small IT staff it is even more important to get rid of the spam before it enters your network.”
* “At the edge… at the edge… at the edge…The very best thing we’ve done for fighting spam is implementing Postini. Users don’t have to fuss with an application that may or may not be current on their desktop – they just want the spam to go away! Postini’s browser-based user control is adequate for that. The last thing I need is another app on all the desktops to manage and support. Of course, we still *lightly* maintain another anti-spam gateway product – just in case. Now, if you’re talking anti-spyware that may be a case for desktop software.”
* “If the spam filter on the network is doing a good job then there really won’t be any significant volume of spam to deal with at the desktop. In our case we are using the Espion spam appliance, and it works extremely well. There is virtually no spam making its way to my desktop. In my opinion, there is not sufficient justification for most shops to consider such a purchase. There are just too many other more critical items on the to-buy list. So if you’re thinking of investing in a desktop anti-spam start-up – think again.”
* “Client-side anti-spam client solutions are nice, but they have to have two things: ease of use and not be potential hogs of CPU/memory/hard drive space. Throw in that there is also administration of transferring all those settings and accepted lists to a new machine. I never looked at the time factors involved, but depending on the customer, it can be a lot for an undermanned help desk and IS support group.”
Thank you to everyone who commented on the article.
