Spam and popup blockers that make computing fun again
Which do you hate more, spam or browser popups? Both aggravate me, so I tested two products that make computing enjoyable again.
First up is InBoxer from Audiotrieve ($28). While there are plenty of spam control products, InBoxer intrigues me because it weaves itself deeply into Microsoft Outlook, and because the company promises to apply filtering technology to other problems.
InBoxer adds two folders to Outlook, InBoxer-Blocked and InBoxer-Review. Most spam filters that use Bayesian mathematics flag messages as pass-fail, spam or not. But InBoxer adds the InBoxer-Review folder, which holds the borderline ones. When you open the InBoxer-Review folder, you can help hone the word-judging sharpness by clicking a Block or Keep icon added to the toolbar across the top of the screen.
The application ships with filtering turned on based on standard spam messages. If you have enough spam of your own gathered in your inbox, however, the filter starts using your spam as the control messages almost immediately.
Audiotrieve is now working to apply intelligent word-filtering for other things, such as Sarbanes-Oxley rules for financial disclosure and HIPAA requirements for medical record privacy. Wouldn’t it be nice if a message requiring special handling for financial auditing arrived automatically in a special InBoxer folder? A future version might also feature an OutBox component to copy and archive all outgoing messages that the feds may want to audit one day.
InBoxer has a couple of drawbacks, such as lack of Outlook Express support. The company promises a Eudora version soon, though. We’d also like to see e-mail applications automatically grab outgoing e-mail addresses for inclusion in the white list of always-accepted messages. Sending a message to someone, then having to watch the Junk (or InBoxer-Review or InBoxer-Blocked) folder for the reply gets old.
Let’s move on. My daughter’s computer (running Windows XP Home Edition) popped open so many browser windows she avoided using Internet Explorer. I installed the trial version of STOPzilla ($20 per year).
Installation happens over the Internet, so make sure you have either a fast connection or plenty of time to download the 2.6M-byte file. Once loaded, I booted my daughter’s system to activate STOPzilla and see what would happen.
STOPzilla blocked all popups on two test machines. The software can show a list of blocked items and labeled five popups as “parasites.” I warn my daughter regularly to never download anything, but some of the popups are so clever they’re easy to fall for. It’s hard to blame a 15-year-old at my house, or non-technical users at your company, for clicking OK to what looks to be an official Microsoft plug-in download authorization.
I left the sound effects on, so every time a popup was caught, the program booped. It’s disconcerting to hear a boop with every new page click on some sites, but good to know to avoid those sites whenever possible (not to name names, but iWon.com and MSN.com booped plenty).
Next time I’ll dig into Mozilla (full Internet suite and separate FireFox browser) and Netscape (Mozilla’s cousin), both of which block spam and popups, and have a great price: free.
