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I thought it might be useful to review some software programs that might be useful to most of us. The reviews will not be every day but will take place from time to time when I find a program that I think we can use to make our computer experience a little, or a lot, better. I have no affiliation with the companies who make the software I will or have reviewed.

This software was tested on a computer running Windows XP and an AMD Athlon 2800+ processor. Click Here To See My Entire Computer Setup

For my first review I would like to examine InBoxer Version 2.0.9 by Audiotrieve. InBoxer is a Spam Filter that works with Microsoft Outlook. If you don't use Outlook as your main Email program, this just might be the program that will convert you. There are many spam filter programs in the market but there is nothing that I have found, that compares with it. InBoxer is special. Not only does it do a better job of blocking spam, but it learns as it goes along. Mail is sorted into the inbox, a box to be reviewed and a box where all the blocked mail goes. The longer you use this program the less mail will be in the review box because, as I said, the program learns what you want and don't want. It very seldom, if ever, makes a mistake on the sorting. I have been using it for about a year now and have never found anything in the blocked mail box that I wanted.

InBoxer is very easy to install. When you load the program into your computer it modifies the toolbar in Outlook by adding a button for 'Block' and another button titled 'InBoxer' that contains a drop down menu with the following entries:

Control Panel
Trust
Filter Current Folder Now
Purge Old Blocked Messages
Advanced
Help
Setup Wizard
Preferences
Plugin Manager

The Control Panel allows you to change the database that it learns from. You can also change the folders that are being watched by InBoxer. Filters can be enabled or disabled.

Trust brings up a menu that has buttons that allow you to decide if you will always trust or deny mail from the party who's email is highlighted by your mouse. It also allows you to edit the lists of trusted and denied senders.

Filter Current Folder Now is useful since it will let you filter any folder you may have created instantly.

Purge Old Blocked Messages empties the Blocked folder.

The Advanced menu item brings up several other entries:
Message Analysis - very handy for checking a message you don't want to open yet until you know its ok. This brings up a very large screen with all sorts of statistics and rates the message in terms of ok or spam. For example one message I analyzed came out with the probability of 87.01% that it was good and only 0.29% that it was spam. You will notice the two figures don't add up to 100%, this is a little confusing, but a small matter. Even each word the program considers relevant is analyzed individually and each is given a score.
Trusted Sender Tools - a whole bunch more tools to edit the trusted sender list than you will ever need.
Statistical Tools - Handy if you want to see exactly what is going on with your mail. Personally I have no need for this, but a business might.
Save Configuration - Once you get the settings the way you want them you can save them.
Preferences - There are some relevant choices here such as time settings for message reviews, cpu settings, even automatic repair of the blocked mail and review mail folders if anything goes wrong. There are other choices that allow the program to blend more closely with Outlook.

Help is very comprehensive allowing for things such as contacting support, trouble shooting, updating and the usual help documents among other things.

Setup Wizard is what it sounds like. It allows you to set up InBoxer using the express setup or the custom setup.

Preferences is different from the preferences under the advanced menu item. This is a small menu that allows you to make choices on how to treat read mail, when to delete mail and if an icon should be put into the system tray.

Plugin Manager is a menu of plugins that you can activate if you want. I didn't activate any myself because they have to do things like making a chime when new mail arrives, redirecting mail, forwarding or deleting mail when it arrives and sending stats.

PC World gave Inboxer their best recommendations and I can see why. InBoxer offer a free 21 day trial period and if you want to buy it, it's cost is $29.95, well worth the money to avoid all that spam aggravation. This product does not work with Outlook Express.

In closing I just want to say that this is a great product, it isn't perfect, one time I had to reinstall it, but it is the closest thing I have found to perfect for blocking spam in my email.