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How do I Choose the Best Spam Appliance?

Matthew Brodsky
Matthew Brodsky

Some information technology experts worry that spam and malware are becoming more difficult to combat. Each year, greater amounts of junk mail and malicious messages are received in e-mail inboxes at home and in the office than the year before. Personal computer users and businesses, though, can control this problem with the right high-powered spam appliance. By choosing the spam protection with the most advanced security measures, greatest ease of use, highest success rate, and other top-notch characteristics, you can stop a great deal of spam.

A spam appliance is a hardware tool that acts as an anti-spam filter for the exchange server. Due to its setup and its generally higher cost, the spam appliance is mostly used by businesses and larger organizations. It might not be the best anti-spam filter for your household. If that's what you need spam protection for, you might want to look for a personal computer anti-spam firewall or other technology.

Some experts worry that spam and malware are becoming more difficult to combat.
Some experts worry that spam and malware are becoming more difficult to combat.

The top spam appliance tools, however, have definite benefits for businesses and other larger entities. A top spam appliance can be easier to install than software spam protection. Software can also be platform specific, meaning it only works on a specific operating systems. On the other hand, spam appliance hardware is platform agnostic and works no matter which system your computers and e-mail exchange server are operating on.

The best spam appliances should safeguard against malware and viruses no matter where they come from.
The best spam appliances should safeguard against malware and viruses no matter where they come from.

Junk mail and malicious messages can enter the business computer system through instant messaging, Internet browsing and other non–e-mail sources, so you should also look for a spam appliance that can protect these other vulnerabilities. The best anti-spam filters safeguard against spyware and viruses no matter where they come from. They also can protect mail servers from so-called overflow attacks.

Legitimate spam appliance vendors will have proof of just how well their devices work. When shopping for spam protection, be sure to ask for such metrics as the number of e-mails that can be filtered at any one time or the accuracy percentage for the spam appliance. Ask spam appliance vendors for the same type of metrics to be sure that you are comparing apples to apples when looking at one spam appliance and another filter. These metrics, along with the price and the ease of use of the e-mail spam hardware can help in the decision of which brand and model to choose.

Discussion Comments

Wisedly33

@Scrbblchick -- I feel your pain. Our spam filter catches stuff, I'll whitelist it and then it goes right back into the junk folder the next time. That's *so* annoying! I don't feel like having to search through my junk folder to make sure real emails didn't get in there.

I finally had to get the sysadmin to go through the spam filter software and whitelist all these email addresses so I could get the ones I needed. What a massive pain! I can't believe our company spent that kind of money on software that doesn't work as well as it ought to.

Scrbblchick

I *hate* our spam appliance at work. It routinely sends actual email to the junk folder and allows junk in my inbox.

I have had the IT work on it, but I still don't get email from one of my co-workers. Goes right to my junk folder, even though her email is in the system!

I've looked in my junk folder, and I get almost as many junk mails in my inbox as I do in my junk box. Irritating is not the word!

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    • Some experts worry that spam and malware are becoming more difficult to combat.
      By: Tyler Olson
      Some experts worry that spam and malware are becoming more difficult to combat.
    • The best spam appliances should safeguard against malware and viruses no matter where they come from.
      By: adimas
      The best spam appliances should safeguard against malware and viruses no matter where they come from.