Rating: 
Summary: SpamKiller 5 is not an upgrade
Review: SpamKiller 4 is much better. I promptly reinstalled it after trying 5.0. SpamKiller 5 doesn't run in the system tray and doesn't notify you when your receive new email. The interface looks nicer but is slower and less functional. Recommend getting SpamKiller 4 while it's still available. (Update: One person told me they liked Norton AntiSpam, but all the reviews say it's buggy and slow, so I wouldn't recommend it over SpamKiller 4.)
Rating: 
Summary: This is worse than having nothing at all
Review: Spamkiller is one of the worst pieces of software I have ever used (and now discarded). I didn't have the very latest version - bought mine in late 2003. It would never show which messages it had blocked but kept all of them (blocked and unblocked) on my hard drive in addition to the ones it sent to my email program. I had to clear out hundreds of files called something like "1234.eml" every week. Spamkiller gave me no indication of what it had blocked so I had no idea of "friendly" emails that were getting discarded. I've rated it 1 star because there is no lower rating.
McAfee tech support was no use at all despite spending a couple of hours on the phone with them.
Rating:
Summary: Does not work with Outlook
Review: Terrible product. The manual is confusing. Integration with Outlook is non-existing. For the life of me, I can't get this product to work as advertized. Do not buy this!
Rating:
Summary: Forget Any Support
Review: The actual software isn't all that bad, it manages to get about 20% of the SPAM - it is easily spoofed by even the the casual spammer. It does however, really seem to like letters from folks I want mail from (like relatives). It puts those in the kill box at the drop of a hat. Fortunately you can still rescue them.The worst part is the lack of support, unless you want to pay $2.95 a minute. Can you spell "Chislers"? Take my advice stick with Symantec products or Zone Alarm.
Rating:
Summary: Don't buy this product. This a 0 Star rating if it existed.
Review: This a very poorly designed software package. I have been using a free/shareware program <http://www.mailwasher.net> and thought while I was purchasing an upgrade to my virus protection I would get a SPAM filter as well and check it out.
I have used VirusScan for years and it has worked fine, though I think this new version is a step back.
By default SpamKiller puts all your e-mail into a SPAM folder with no simple way to sort out what is acceptable and unacceptable.
It just looks like a mess with your real e-mail in with the SPAM. I think whoever did the user acceptance of this should be moved to another department.
The program seems like it will do a lot, but it does not do the basics well. For example my freeware program is set to check e-mail every ten minutes and it always had e-mail in it that SpamKiller did not have set for the same time interval. It is just slow and clunky.
This a case where less is more.
With mailwasher you have to take the time to blacklist & white list addresses & domains, but it least it gives the that control in an easy interface.
I am not touting this little program I just happen to find a few years back, which is free/shareware, it would seem to me if Mcaffe is charging $40.00 for SpamKiller and other software is out there for free or very little that does the job with understanding there is no technical support (versus the illusion that Mcaffe has it).
Why buy this product?
Forget the rebate it is a joke. It is a sales pitch to get you to buy and then when you read the fine print you won't get any money.
Rating:
Summary: It does kill SPAM, but also kills your system
Review: This does kill SPAM and it works well at that, including HOTMAIL SPAM, which I don't think anybody else does. However, the program always runs in the background, and often takes 80% of your system memory and resources. Meaning, just about anything you perform on your system other than killing SPAM is very slow. If you're working with Outlook, things get even slower. When you first install it on an XP system, you get all kinds of errors when the program runs, which the website does not address. These go away with the first program update. Most of all, to use the program, you get the dreaded McAfee Security Center. With this wonderful piece of what may or may not be Spyware, you have to provide details about yourself and register. You also get "reminders" of their other products, and worst of all...SPAM from McAfee - which you then can at least block. At least Symantec does not force their other offerings on you.
Rating:
Summary: I wish I could rate this negative five stars!
Review: This program is just about the most useless one I have ever owned. First of all, don't bother if you use MAPI, or have more than one POP3 account in Outlook, or if your SMTP server requires authentication, or you have any other installation that varies from using just one standard POP3 account in Outlook Express. On my POP3 accounts, this thing made it so that I could not send without being prompted for my password, because my server requires authentication. There's a place in the program to enter this information, but I can't see why, because you are never told to send through it, only receive. Plus, it tagged almost EVERYTHING as spam, so what's the point? When I tried in a corporate setting, with Exchange Server and Outlook, it did absolutely nothing. It saw my acccount, said it was functioning correctly, then proceeded to not block ANYTHING. It didn't even see any email, spam or otherwise. Attempts to manually stamp something as spam always failed. The final straw that makes this program the most useless is the lack of support. Unless you like paying more than twice the cost of the software itself for phone support. The online help is nothing more than a reprint of the in-program help, which is just an electronic version of the useless manual. None of them really explains anything. Now I remember why I always pay a few bucks extra for Norton products.
Rating:
Summary: kills spam, adds you to spamming list
Review: we now know that exploits like webbugs etc are used in html to confirm "visiting a site." well in html email adding a webbug that includes your email address is a way to confirm the email address is live and valid and worse yet, that the email has been read. Spamkiller actually does this not just for the mail you kill but even for mail it filters and you never read. IE every message with a webbug returns a message to teh spammer that your account is live and that you read spam! You can not turn off this feature in either spamkiller 5.0 or 4.0. this is incredible! use this product and you will be added to every spammer's list, not only as a live email address, but as someone who opens their spam mail (even if you don't!)
Rating:
Summary: SpamKiller, SpamBunny or SpamNotReadyYet
Review: You pick the real name.
What it is - A filter based layer that sits between your email client and email server. While you can create/modify your own rules, the real benefit to most users is the downloaded set of rules that McAfee maintains and updates. The white list capability allows you to specify friends whose mail should not be filtered, regardless of content. It integrates with Outlook Express fairly well, picking up the accounts during installation and providing a toolbar for one stop usage. What it might be - While the feature list speaks of probability heuristics and learning capability, there is no mention of Bayesian filtering (given that this is one of the hot topics in spam filtering, you would assume that if they had it they would slap that label all over the place if it was included), nor are there the usual controls associated with tweaking the settings that usually accompanies a Bayes style filtering scheme. [See SpamBayes for an open source Bayesian Outlook pluggin] What it is not - Unless you are running a very basic email setup, this is not a plug and play piece of code. I use Outlook for my Pop3 accounts (not Outlook Express) in a home environment. The install program failed to find any of the multiple email accounts setup in Outlook, so I had to add those manually including altering the properties for the accounts. The claims that SpamKiller integrates with Outlook apply to large scale users with an Exchange Server and MAPI accounts, not home users with Pop3 accounts; home users do not get the nice little toolbar and need to use both the SpamKiller client and email client to process email. Bottom line - For the unsophisticated home user with Outlook Express as their email client, that does not want to be bothered with the myriad of rules necessary to block spam, this is probably a good buy. For the corporate group with a full Exchange setup trying to block unwanted spam, this might be a good choice. For the lonely home user with a little more sophistication running something other than the above, you might get some benefit, but it will cost you some time and frustration puzzling over the setup and missing features. For the time being, I am returning to my Bayesian filter. P-)
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