Spam Reviews: LashBack 2.13
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Product: Lashback Vendor: LashBack LLC Price: $3.99 per month / $29.99 per year Editor Rating: 3 ½ stars Download Now! |
Pros
+ Highly effective at fighting spam
+ Easy to use
Cons
- Price
- Only supports Outlook and Outlook Express
Review
We test each spam filter by first sending 100 spam emails to a test account with the spam filter installed. If necessary, we then train the product, typically by pressing a button marking the email as spam. After the training process is complete, we then send a larger set of spam emails to the same account to determine the overall effectiveness of the product.
Installation
LashBack installed easily into both Outlook Express and Outlook 2000. When Outlook was started for the first time, Internet Explorer displayed a Flash based tutorial on how to use the product. The short tutorial was very helpful in becoming familiar with the function of each of the four LashBack toolbar buttons.
Usability
LashBack works much like other spam filtering applications. If a spam email gets into your Inbox, you designate it as spam using the 'LashBack' button and the message is moved automatically to the ‘Spam’ folder. If a legitimate email is erroneously marked as spam, simply click 'AddToSafeList' and emails from the sender will no longer be filtered.
Training
After installing LashBack for the first time, we downloaded 70 spam emails and 30 legitimate emails from our test account. The software quarantined 78 total emails of which 13 were legitimate emails. Five spam emails made it through (93% effectiveness).
The emails that slipped through the initial test were corrected using the ‘LashBack’ and ‘AddToSafeList’ buttons. We then downloaded another 283 spam messages and 17 legitimate emails. LashBack quarantined 266 emails, including 3 legitimate ones; another 20 spam emails were not identified as such. This puts LashBack accuracy up there with the other top spam filters at 94%. While LashBack was extremely effective at blocking spam, it tended to filter more legitimate emails than our #1 product, Spam Inspector.
Other Features
One feature that sets LashBack apart from the other spam filters is that it will attempt to unsubscribe you from distribution lists using an unsubscribe link, if available. While this is a nice feature, the worst spammers will not include a working unsubscribe link in their email. This could change with the advent of tougher anti-spam laws.
Summary
LashBack is easy to use and very effective at filtering spam out of your Inbox. The software is sold on a subscription ($3.99 per month, $29.99 per year) basis, which makes it a slightly more expensive product.
Price: $3.99 per month, $29.99 per year
Free Trial: Yes
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