Customer Reviews

iHateSpam

5 star:		(25)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(5)
1 star:		(17)

 

 

I tried this product after a horrible experience with McAfee Spamkiller. This software is SO much better!

This software is an e-mail filtering add-in that works with e-mail software such as Outlook Express. Whenever you check your e-mail, the Ihatespam software kicks in and sends all spam directly to your recycle bin. If you like, you can review it there before dumping the trash. About 15% of my spam still gets through the Ihatespam filters. Whenever a spam message lands in the inbox, I just click on a button, which automatically moves the message to the recycle bin with the other spam, but also gives me the option of blocking all e-mail from the same address. The first time I used it, it imported all the names of frequent correspondents from my address book as friends. Other features offered with the click of a button are "bounce", which sends an error message to the spammer, and "report", which sends a complaint to the spammer's mail administrator.

The software was easy to install and updates automatically whenever you open your e-mail software. It's well worth the money.

Nearly all the features of this program are limited to uses of OUTLOOK (the big brother to Outlook Express). Outlook Express users are limited to an automation of the existing Blocked Senders List function. Outook Express users could, in fact, save their money, use the Blocked Senders List, edit the blocked senders down to their domains, and achieve the same spam-blocking results (~80%).

Outlook users should seriously consider this program. Outlook Express users should consider the McAfee program. Netscape users, Eudora users, and all others cannot use this program as only Microsoft Outlook/Outlook Express are supported.

I used I Hate Spam! for a year and was quite satisfied with it, and it's a very good spam filter program. I wrote a very positive review some months ago for it, and it has certainly served me well. It was easy to configure and although I was only using it with Outlook Express, which doesn't have all the filter options compared to Outlook, it was still able to catch about 80% of the spam. I had also researched the other spam filter programs before buying this one, and it had very good reviews on Amazon, compared to McAfee's Spamkiller, which I'd already bought, but hadn't opened yet. So I returned it and exchanged it for I Hate Spam!

One nice feature of the program is it allows you to "bounce" unwanted emails back to their source. This sends a return email that looks like its from the main email router that your address is invalid, which hopefully causes it to be removed from the spammer's mailing list sometimes. I don't know how effective this really is, but they're a certain amount of satisfaction in bouncing their message back to them and clogging up their mailbox with unwanted messages too.

My only problem with it is that since I only have 128 megs of RAM with XP, after some months the spam filters got so large my email ran quite slow and my hard disk started thrashing a lot. I was surprised the combination of Outlook and I Hate Spam! had gotten that memory intensive, but the spam filters update regularly from the web, and after a while the filter database gets quite big, and every email gets compared against it, which takes some time.

Anyway, over the last several years my spam load has probably increased 10 times, to the point where I'm getting 10 times as much spam as actual email. That plus the memory issues I was experiencing meant my email downloads were taking a long time even though I only get 2-3 emails a day, and I was getting 20-30 spam messages. That's not much compared to several people I know who get 100 spam emails a day, but still, I finally decided to bite the bullet and change my email account name. You can usually do this through the webmail interface for your ISP. Mine is Earthlink, so I went to their Account Maintenance page, selected eMail, and went through the steps to change my email address. Now I get zero spam and no more viruses either, which were getting more and more frequent, since I'd gotten on probably dozens of spammer mailing lists. Recently I got on the ones for Viagra and was getting lots of those. Then I started getting the ones for penis enlargement products, which I suppose was only inevitable after getting on the Viagra lists. Oh well, that's modern life for you.

Anyway, it was at that point that I decided to change my email name. For some people this isn't practical for professional reasons or business reasons, but I'm retired so although I have about 100 correspondents, it's no big deal. I sent out a message to my entire distribution list that my email name was changing after four or five years, and to make a note of it. Of course, 3/4 of those people won't do that and will fail to put the new name in their address book, but oh well. Anyway, I recommend you do this too if you possibly can. At this point I don't even need I Hate Spam!, but I still run it anyway since it's so much faster now.

One last word of caution. I got all that spam because when I first got online about 5 years ago I not too wisely signed up at various webpages for various online information services such as electronic magazines, or information updates on various subjects I was interested in, and other free stuff, and after awhile, everybody and anybody had my email address. So be careful what you sign up for. Otherwise you'll have more email than you know what to do with.

Another way this happens is if someone you know gets one of those Outlook email viruses that sends emails out to everybody in your address book. Now you'll be getting emails forever with that virus in it since you'll be on the list of people to email. This is one reason why it's important to have an anti-virus program too in addition to a spamkiller.

Overall, a fine program, although if you take my recommendation to change your email name, you probably won't need a spam filter. :-)

As a result of reading the reviews here, I returned McAfee's Spamkiller unopened and bought this package. It's worked well for me so far in the month I've had it. The tool bar it places on top of Outlook is convenient. Configured for medium-level filtering it seems to catch about 80% of the spam, although it also thinks two of the legitimate newsletters I get are spam. This is no problem, however, as you can manually declare them as friends, and after that they don't get quarantined. The same is true of undetected spam, which you can declare as an "enemy."

One thing I should mention is that I use it in Outlook Express mode. You don't get the full capabilities unless you use the full Outlook program. But so far it's been fine as is. The "quarantined" messages automatically go into your "Deleted" items folder, where you can look at them there if you want to, to make sure nothing important got zapped.

One nice feature of the program is that you can Bounce any message back to the spammer. This makes it look like you have an invalid email or internet address, which hopefully causes you to be automatically removed from the lists sometimes and reduces your spam over time. My only complaint is that this feature is slow to respond and actually send out the messages after you click on "Bounce." For some reason, there can be a 30 second to a minute delay when doing this, and I've found that if you Bounce too many messages before it has time to clear some of them out and start sending, it sometimes hangs my Outlook Express program. My hard disk sometimes starts noticeably thrashing when this happens, so I may just be running short of RAM or virtual memory. I only have 128 megs of RAM, but I don't do that much with my system. However, I just bought a 512M upgrade that I plan to install, and see if that helps the situation somewhat. I wouldn't think the combination of Outlook Express and I Hate Spam would be that memory intensive.

Overall, however, this has been a good program, and I'd actually give it 4.5 stars if I could.

EXCELLENT! I was about to give up on my email address, before I found this software and bought it, they offer a 30 day money back guarantee so I figured I had nothing to lose. I installed it and it just worked. The next time I opened Outlook Express my inbox was clean. I don't know what else to say, it does what it advertises, kills the spam and leaves me the mail I want! 29.95 well spent in my book.

iHateSpam is by far the best product! I purchased SpamKiller a few weeks ago (thinking it has to be good coming from McAfee) and returned it because it was too difficult for my employees to use. I purchased iHateSpam through Amazon last week and LOVE it, so I purchased a copy for all my employees. It is easy to install, easy to use. Thank you Sunbelt - keep up the good work!

This tools is great. Super easy to install and run. Way better than SpamKiller, their install required the password for my POP account and who knows -that-? I run Outlook 2002 and iHateSpam even filters my Hotmail account. Worth the money 5 times over. It really eliminates that annoying junk email. Love it!

I've tried a ton of anti-Spam software programs including a 30 day trial version of iHateSpam; it is absolutely the best!! No problems loading it and no problems running it - my only complaint is the "report" section (which bounces the Spam in to a reporting .com didn't work as advertised.

This is the best anti-Spam program on the market!!

I uninstalled this program because I ended up spending more time dealing with it than it took simply to delete spam messages every morning. It is not capable of detecting messages with forged headers and does not provide an option for automatically deleting messages from foreign countries, which constitute a tremendous amount of the spam I receive.

I just bought this product today after trying about 15 different spam blocking software.(trial versions)This is the best spam software. I was getting between 20&100 spam e-mails a day and just from one day of using this product i can see a dramatic decrese in spam. I would recommend this to anyone. I'm also using this on outlook express and i dont think the added features this product offers in outlook i would need or have a use for.Its powerful easy and i love it so far. way better than McAffe spam killer. #1 Product.Hats off to the people who designed this software.