I'm being bombarded!!

[CiscoKid]

Can anyone suggest a Spam Blocker I can install in a corporate environment? preferably free if possible...

I'm getting complaint after complaint about Spam over here at work. The company contracts out for e-mail services so I'm stuck haveing to do any filtering on the individual user level, otherwise it'd be an easy fix....

[YeOldeStonecat]

What do you mean "Contracts out for e-mail services"?

What's your mail running on? POP3? Exchange? Lotus?

What e-mail clients?

[CiscoKid]

They don't run their own e-mail server. I'm trying to get that changed, but my supervisor is leary of going that route. It's POP3, dunno much more about the server besides that...

It's pretty much standard to use Outlook for the e-mail client.

[YeOldeStonecat]

Whelp....here's my opinion/suggestions/what I do.

POP3 hosting...first thing to do, see if the current mail host has an upgraded package where they "wash your mail". What I mean by that...is scrub the mail for spam and viruses...right there at the data center before it's plopped in the end users mailboxes. The bandwidth/web hosting company that I partner with, he's located right next to my office...he washes the mail for all his hosts. This costs more...yes...but you'll find that business clients usually are willing to accept paying more money for better service. If they don't..you don't want them as clients if they're going to nickle 'n dime you to death like that. I use him for all my clients...after a while..they really appreciate having a clean inbox.

If your current host doesn't offer a package to do this...I'd suggest moving to one that does. Any decent web hosting company that wants business clients should do this by now..if they wish to remain competitive in this market.

If you're using Office 2003....visit office.microsoft.com so that your Office is fully updated..which includes spam filter updates for Outlook 2003..which has it's own anti-spam tool. Once you have Windows updated to Microsoft Update..it will automatically update your Office products..which will include nearly monthly definition updates for Outlooks spam filter.

As for 3rd party filters...Cloudmark is my fave..it's pay for, but it's top rated by nearly any comparison out there. http://cloudmark.com/

As for free ones....you can experiment..there are quite a few out there..here's a list http://email.about.com/cs/winspamreviews/tp/free_spam.htm

What are you running for a gateway/firewall there? Any addons for that? If you're running any *nix routers...there are usually plugins for those..such as Copfilter for IPCop. In includes virus and spam scrubbing using Clam and Spamassasin add ons. http://www.madlener.tk/