Rating: 
Summary: There are better alternatives ...
Review: Don't waste your time or money with this product. Been there - done that - product doesn't work well - no support - tricky online upgrades that cost $. Get a real product from a honest company such as Norton AntiSpam.
Rating: 
Summary: Decent but not great
Review: I use the 3.2 version of this product and would describe its performance as adequate but not stellar for the single-PC user receiving a moderate volume of email. The program quickly learns to block a good percentage of spam but then never seems to get any smarter even when the subject lines are dead giveaways. All newsletters and some personal emails are blocked automatically, forcing you to check your "Quarantine" folder regularly for legitimate email, which then needs to be manually whitelisted. You have the option to report screening errors to Sunbelt Software, ostensibly to improve the product, but I see no evidence that anyone at the company pays attention. I have used free anti-spam products that are at least as effective as IHateSpam. If in fact Sunbelt Software has stopped updating their spam database for 3.x users like me, that is a further disappointment. I will not be purchasing the new version.
Rating:
Summary: I hate iHateSpam. Laughable "cust. Support", lousy product.
Review: I used iHateSpam version three and found it to be a marginal product. But when I was offered the online upgrade to version 4 I thought "why not, it's probably better now." Boy was I ever wrong. First, it's filtering is SLOW - slower than version three! Second, it takes way too many system resources, just try to multitask while it's doing it's filtering. Third, it hardly catches any blatent spam while putting more legitimate mail in Quarantine (yes, I've worked extensively with my friends and enemies lists, it just doesn't help). Fourth, when you try to get some help from tech support, you basically get none. They just spin you in circles without ever, EVER, addressing your issues. At this rate, they'll be toast soon. So, if you couldn't already tell, I would advise all to not even think about buying this product - you'll be much better off without it.
Rating: 
Summary: Spam?? What Spam??
Review: I used the 3.2 version of this product for some time and judged its performance to be adequate but not stellar for the single-PC user receiving a moderate volume of email. The program quickly learns to block a good percentage of spam but then never seems to get any smarter even when the subject lines are dead giveaways. All newsletters and some personal emails are blocked automatically, forcing you to check your "Quarantine" folder regularly for legitimate email, which then needs to be manually whitelisted. You have the option to report screening errors to Sunbelt Software, ostensibly to improve the product, but I see no evidence that anyone at the company pays attention. I have used free anti-spam products that are at least as effective as IHateSpam.I recently had to upgrade my installation to the current version (4.0.426) because version 3.2 of IHateSpam did not get along with MS Office XP Service Pack 3. The spam screening performance of version 4.0 is on a par with that of the earlier version, i.e. so-so. But the new version takes a giant step back in another respect. The program creates three background processes that run in Windows all the time, even when Outlook is not running. These processes take up over 25 MB of memory! Even if you use IHateSpam's option to disable the program temporarily, these processes continue to run and take up your system's resources. Why anyone would design a spam filter to function this way is beyond me. I am downgrading my rating from 3 stars to a very generous 2.
Rating: 
Summary: Not recommended
Review: I used the 3.2 version of this product for some time and judged its performance to be adequate but not stellar for the single-PC user receiving a moderate volume of email. The program quickly learns to block a good percentage of spam but then never seems to get any smarter even when the subject lines are dead giveaways. All newsletters and some personal emails are blocked automatically, forcing you to check your "Quarantine" folder regularly for legitimate email, which then needs to be manually whitelisted. You have the option to report screening errors to Sunbelt Software, ostensibly to improve the product, but I see no evidence that anyone at the company pays attention. I have used free anti-spam products that are at least as effective as IHateSpam. I recently had to upgrade my installation to the current version (4.0.426) because version 3.2 of IHateSpam did not get along with MS Office XP Service Pack 3. The spam screening performance of version 4.0 is on a par with that of the earlier version, i.e. so-so. But the new version takes a giant step back in another respect. The program creates three background processes that run in Windows all the time, even when Outlook is not running. These processes take up over 25 MB of memory! Even if you use IHateSpam's option to disable the program temporarily, these processes continue to run and take up your system's resources. Why anyone would design a spam filter to function this way is beyond me. I am downgrading my rating from 3 stars to a very generous 2.
Rating:
Summary: Best Outlook anti-spam tool out there!
Review: iHateSpam not only blocks the lion's share of spam I receive, it also allows me to send a (convincing but fake) bounce message and/or report spam abuse to various authorities. iHateSpam also allows the user to easily tag a sender/domain as a friend or enemy and black/whitelist them accordingly. The program is easy to install and configure out of the box, and allows for extensive tweaking to make it work the way you want it to. As a network sysadmin who is very conservative about introducing new software in a corporate environment, I consider iHateSpam to be the most stable, user-accessible and empowering anti-spam software currently available, and have recommended it for corporate use without hesitation.
Rating:
Summary: Just doesn't cut the mustard
Review: Most of us with one or more email addresses desperately need spam filtering. I evaluated both IHateSpam v3 and v4. Version 3 was defintely the better of the two in both the amount of spam it catches and in its memory footprint. V4 runs three processes that take up about 25 mb of memory once you activate Outlook. In fact these process continue to stay resident even after you close Outlook. IHateSpam says not to disable or kill them or their product wont work. On a tip from the internet, I decided to give Outlook's 2003 built-in junk email filtering a go. What a relief - it beats IHhateSpam by a factor of 10 to 1. Outlook catches about 97% of the spam that I get and rarely filters out a valid message. In contrast, IHateSpam v3 caught maybe 35% and required alot of manual maintenance. IHateSpam v4 did not do much better but required less hands-on administration. Outlook 2003 filtering is nearly transparent. Recommendation is to pass on this product, save 25 mb of memory, and use Outlook 2003 built-in junk email filtering if possible.
Rating:
Summary: Spam?? What Spam??
Review: Since I started using this product I have no more spam and it never ever catches my good email. I get 300+ spam messages a day and it catches all of them. Awesome product, and it's dirt cheap!
Rating:
Summary: Slow, very slow
Review: The latest IHateSpam version 4 is VERY slow compared to the previous version 3.2. I use it with Outlook 2002 and it takes about 15 minutes to filter out 80 or so spam messages I usually get when I turn on my laptop in the morning. Version 3.2 took only 2 minutes. It is hawking up so much resources that everything comes to a crawl when the filter is running. The fan has to come on for several times to cool the cpu down. On the positive side, its accuracy seems to have improved a bit. It misses only 3 spams after the fitering is done versus the old version that misses about 8 out of the 80 spams. The bottom line - I would go back to version 3.2 or look for a better spam filter.
Rating:
Summary: Slow, very slow
Review: The latest IHateSpam version 4 is VERY slow compared to the previous version 3.2. I use it with Outlook 2002 and it takes about 15 minutes to filter out 80 or so spam messages I usually get when I turn on my laptop in the morning. Version 3.2 took only 2 minutes. It is hawking up so much resources that everything comes to a crawl when the filter is running. The fan has to come on for several times to cool the cpu down. On the positive side, its accuracy seems to have improved a bit. It misses only 3 spams after the fitering is done versus the old version that misses about 8 out of the 80 spams. The bottom line - I would go back to version 3.2 or look for a better spam filter.
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