As regular readers will know I regularly cover the problem of e-mail spam. For PR people, whose e-mail addresses accompany press releases and are posted on websites, spam is becoming a critical issue in managing electronic communications.
Most of us don’t have the luxury of server-side spam tools as we want to make sure an e-mail from a journalist, analyst, freelancer or client is mistakenly blocked. However most of the many spam products I’ve tried really don’t do a good job. In many cases the product block as many good messages as bad.
A new approach to this spam problem is provided by Qurb. Qurb takes a different approach. It scans your e-mail software (currently only Outlook and Outlook Express) and builds a list of legitimate e-mail addresses from your contacts, sent e-mail and other folders. Any e-mail address not included in that list is then “Quarantined” into a sub folder.
If the folder includes e-mails from authentic senders you simply tick a box and that e-mail address is added to your allowed sender list.
It’s simple and easy and is already providing me with better results than the other spam products I’ve tried.
Couple of provisos:
It only works with Windows, and only works with Outlook 2000+ and Outlook Express 5.5+.
When you install it, a default feature is sending a message to “unauthorised” senders telling them they’ve been quarantined. I recommend turning this off immediately. You simply click on the Qurb button and in options uncheck the confirmation box.
Getting it:
You can download a free trial here. It costs $29.95
Murphy's Law 