Review: Cloudmark DesktopOne Spam Blocker
Kai Chandler revisits his favourite Spam Blocker
| Product | Cloudmark DesktopOne Spam Blocker |
|---|---|
| Company | Cloudmark |
| Web | www.cloudmarkdesktop.com |
| Price | Free (basic mode) |
| We like | Very elegant and accurate |
| We don't like | Expensive over time. |
| Rating | 10/10 |
| Requirements | Nothing Much! |
We all hate spam!
Fed up with spam email? We were, until back in 2008 we looked at the original Cloudmark spam blocker and reported it an excellent solution although perhaps, at $39.95 USD per annum, somewhat costly. How does their new replacement product, Cloudmark DesktopOne, rate? The headline news is that DesktopOne is free of charge in its basic form, which should be sufficient for most users.
Unlike so many spam filters that come as part of an enormous internet security product, DesktopOne is a lean and mean standalone product that starts up with Windows.
Mail client or browser?
When you install it, DesktopOne adds a toolbar entry to your email client, be it Mozilla Thunderbird, Microsoft Outlook or Outlook Express. You will also find that DesktopOne has created a Spam folder. Whenever mail is downloaded it's analyzed and moved into the Spam folder if suspect. We found that all this happens in under half a second per email, so if you have a heavy mailbag it can take a short time, but that's nothing compared with the time you are saving over using a less competent spam blocker. Oh, and DesktopOne isn't limited to scanning new mail - it can also scan an existing folder.
Alternatively, if you use a Hotmail or similar web-based mail service then you can set DesktopOne automatically to log into the IMAP or POP3 mail server to start filtering out the spam.
Yes, but how accurate is it?
Any spam filter lives or dies by how well it splits the spam out from your real email. Cloudmark's approach relies on users reporting back whether a message is legitimate or spam. Tapping into a community of around a billion users, including AT&T, Comcast, MySpace, NTT, Swisscom and Time Warner Cable subscribers, the intelligence built up is remarkably accurate and up to date. Bulk commercial emails, phishing emails and viruses are generally filtered out very accurately indeed, in everyday use, it is almost uncanny how few spam mails are left in the inbox (false negatives) and no wanted messages ever make it to the spam folder (false positives.) On the rare occasion you get a spam message in your inbox, you can just click the DesktopOne Block button, and it moves the item to the Spam folder without any fuss, and information is sent back to Cloudmark's network to identify that particular message as spam. If a number of other users flag the same message then Cloudmark's filter will activate for the benefit of other users.
DesktopOne in basic (ie. Free) mode doesn't housekeep the Spam folder, so you'll probably want to empty it yourself every now and then but the pro (ie. Paid-for version) does its own housekeeping, as it purges the Spam folder to delete anything over a certain user-configurable age. It is slightly spooky to see the count of messages in the Spam folder counting down under DesktopOne control.
DesktopOne works slightly differently for Hotmail and other web-based email users as it connects to your mail server automatically every few minutes to filter out the unwanted messages. They are kept for seven days by default and can be viewed via the Desktop One program.
Free or paid-for?
Cloudmark DesktopOne in basic mode is free for individual users to filter one e-mail account into a single spam folder. This should be enough for most people but if you need to manage multiple e-mail accounts and folders or want to make use of the spam folder automatic housekeeping then you can upgrade to use DesktopOne in pro mode for a reasonable U.S. $19.95 per year.
And finally…
We can't recommend Cloudmark DesktopOne highly enough and we are pleased to give it a perfect 10/10 score. Many users will find that the free version meets their main requirements so should try that first.
