Norton Antispam - Your "All-In-One" Internet Ad/Spam Blocking Solution?
Written: Nov 30 '03 (Updated Jul 27 '04)
Product Rating:
Pros: Uses a combination of spam filtering technologies w/excellent results, integrates into your email program.
Cons: Doesn't coexist well with Activesync, Ad/Popup blocking controls are limited
The Bottom Line: Norton Antispam filters email very effectively, and offers good ad/popup blockers. A hot key override to the ad blockers would be appreciated. The conflicts w/Activesync creates problems for PocketPC users.
nc10's Full Review: Symantec Norton AntiSpam 2004 Full Version for PC ...
Norton AntiSpam 2004 (NAS) is one of the newest options for PC users who want to put a serious dent into the amount of spam and advertisements being sent to their web browsers and POP3 email clients (like Outlook, Outlook Express, Eudora, Netscape Mail). Recently I received a copy at no charge to test and review here. NAS is available as a standalone program (how I received the software), or as part of Symantec's Internet Security Package, which also includes Norton Antivirus, Personal Firewall, Privacy Control and Parental Control. Norton Antispam uses a combination of several spam detection techniques, including black and white lists (friend or enemy), editable rules, a Bayesian filter, and training based on your outgoing emails to identify spam. In addition to blocking email Spam, NAS will also block popup ads and many of the ads embedded in web pages, if you so choose.
Installation
NAS comes on one CD. The installer autolaunches after you insert the disk into your CDRom, and starts by asking you to enter the long product key which can be found on the back of the cd envelope. After the software is installed, you'll be asked to go online and "activate" your copy of NAS, which you can do immediately, or within 15 days of the installation, after which NAS stops working. The activation process was quick and worked without a hitch. Once installation was complete, I noticed a new NAS toolbar in Outlook or and a NAS button w/dropdown menu in Outlook Express, as well as a new email folder, called Norton Antispam Folder. At this point, NAS was ready to start filtering my email, and filing spam in the new Antispam folder. NAS had also imported all the email addresses from my address book and added them to its "white list" (sometimes called a "trusted" list). All email from senders on the white list would be routed to my Inbox, even if they looked like spam.
Norton Antispam in Action
Spam Filtering
I installed NAS on a Windows XP system, and use Outlook 2002 for reading email. My ISP is Cox, a cable internet provider, I use Netscape 7.1 for about 90% of my web browsing, and use IE6 about 10% of the time. My Outlook contacts, emails, tasks, and other information are sync'd with a Toshiba e755 PocketPC using Microsoft Activesync, another program that, like NAS, integrates itself with Outlook, although Activesync exchanges information with my PocketPC, rather than filter spam. As soon as the installation was complete NAS was ready to effectively filter any email I received, for all of the email accounts I had set up in Outlook. Most good messages were allowed to go to my inbox, and spam was sent to the new Norton Antispam folder. Over the first week, NAS was about 85% accurate in identifying spam and good email, but this percentage rapidly improved as I used NAS. Each spam message header was also modified to include the phrase [Norton AntiSpam].
Unfortuntately, during the first week I also discovered was that NAS conflicts with Activesync, a Microsoft program which connects my PocketPC to my desktop PC. If I had my PocketPC in its docking station and turned on, it would be "connected" to my PC (via Microsoft's Activesync software), and if I launched Outlook when the PocketPC was connected, the NAS toolbar in Outlook would be missing. If the PocketPC was turned off, or removed from the docking station, and it was "not connected" to my desktop, the NAS toolbar would show up in Outlook. To their credit, Symantec notes this problem with Activesync (and Hotsync, a similar program) in the knowledgebase for NAS on their website (search the Symantec knowledge base for toolbar missing from Outlook), and suggests that users "change the frequency" of syncing, to minimize this problem, but I've not had much luck changing the syncing frequency. Otherwise, I've found NAS to work well, well enough for now for me to stick with NAS and give Symantec a little time to fix this bug.
One reason to stick with NAS is that the more you use it, the more accurately it identifies desired email and spam. Since what is spam to one person might be a good email to another, no Antispam program will be perfect. But, NAS does include several tools that should minimize the errors it makes.
- Each time you identify an email as spam that NAS thought was a "good" email, it adds that sender to you "black" list, and marks all future email from that sender as spam. Similarly, each time NAS misidentifies a good email as spam, you can add that sender to your "white" or "trusted" list.
- With each email you send (which NAS assumes is a good email) NAS is training itself to better identify what you judge to be a good email by upgrading the filters it uses to identify spam. One of the methods used by NAS to identify spam is to analyze the words and characters in each email, and based on the probability of each of those words or characters showing up in a spam message or in a good email (it considers both possibilities), it can predict whether or not an email is spam. Thus, if a friend sent you an email complaining about receiving too many offers to buy Viagra, it would likely not be identified as spam, because the value the words associated with a good email would outweigh the single word (viagra) associated with spam emails. If you were just using a rules based filter that identified any email containing the word viagra as spam, you might never see that email. In an effort to continuously improve itself, Symantec says that NAS uses your own emails to add additional data to that spam/good email probability database, to fine tune its performance to meet your own specific spam identification needs. Based on my use of NAS over the past few weeks, I believe NAS is learning my personal definition of spam.
- You can add to the rules that NAS uses to identify or good email, if it contains designated phrases in the subject line, sender address, message body, or recipient list. As best I can tell, you can only add rules that identify text in messages. You can't do things like identifying an email as spam if the recipient list contains more than 12 names.
- NAS checks the Symantec website automatically, using the "Live Update" feature built into all Symantec products, not only for updates to the software itself, but also for updates to the filters and rules. This helps NAS keep up to date with the latest techniques used by spammers. One year of updates are included with your purchase.
One of the "fun" features of NAS is the Statistics it keeps. For example, over the last 21 days, NAS tells me I have received 201 emails, 70 emails were good emails, and 131 were spam. Of the 70 good emails, NAS correctly identifed 63 (90%). Of the 131 spam emails, NAS correctly identified 123 (93.9%). After about 1 week of use, both numbers were only 85%, so it appears that NAS is truly getting smarter. Each time NAS makes a mistake, I select the "this is spam" or "this is not spam" button from the NAS toolbar in Outlook, training NAS to mark messages as Spam or good email to meet my specific needs. NAS' initial mistakes were not too suprising, the emails I identified as "good" that NAS originally thought were spam included advertisements from Circuit City and Compusa, and an order confirmation from Compusa, messages which might look like spam to any spam filtering software. More recent messages from both senders now make it to my inbox rather than to my spam folder.
(DEC 12, 2003 update: I've received 348 emails since installing NAS, 145 good emails and 203 spam emails. NAS identified good emails correctly 94.5% of the time, and identified spam correctly 93.1% of the time.)
Ad Blocking
NAS will optionally block (most of) the ads that appear on web pages. NAS identifies ads in two ways:
- by their dimensions, as most advertisers use standard sized ads.
- by location on the internet, many ads are served from the same location, and NAS maintains a list of ad locations and blocks them. You can also add additional locations to this list, or specifically permit ads from some of these locations to display on a given website (you have to tell NAS to show these ads on each website individually, you can't permit ad locations globally, though you can block ads from certain locations globally)
Ad blocking could be pretty useful if you have a dialup connection, and want to minimize the amount of information that your computer has to download and display. Another use might be to minimize the amount of questionable ads that might show up when a child is using a computer. However, if you're like me, once you turn on the ad blocker, you'll realize that there are a quite a few ads that you want to see, like the links to vendors here at Epinions or other shopping sites.
For example, if you were viewing the Epinions web page that this review is posted on with ad blocking turned on, the main banner ad at the top of the screen (under the tabbed menu choices), and the large banner ad which appears to the right of the screen both would be missing, with white space in its place. These are ads you may or may not wish to see, though if you are a frequent epinions user and want the site to be successful, you may prefer to not block the ads. More importantly however, the links to vendors in the "Compare Prices", "Featured Products", and "Featured Resources" sections at the end of this review would also be missing. If you were price comparison shopping, those links are critical. Fortunately, NAS gives you a way to permit those ads. For example, telling NAS to allow all ads with the string "epinions" in its location/html code, causes the links to vendors to be shown on this page, even if ad blocking is turned on. If you find ads that NAS is not blocking, its a little easier to add them to the blocked list, as you can "drag" the ad into the "ad trashcan" in NAS to add the ad's location to the blocked list.
Popup Blocking
Symantec describes the popup blocking feature in NAS as follows:
Pop-up and pop-under ads are secondary windows that Web sites open when you visit or leave the sites. Pop-ups appear on top of the current window, while pop-unders appear behind the current window.
When Popup Window Blocking is enabled, Ad Blocking automatically blocks the programming code Web sites use to open secondary windows without your knowledge. Sites that open secondary windows when you click a link or perform other actions are not affected.
In some cases, you may want to view pop-up windows on a site. In this case, you can temporarily disable Popup Window Blocking.
By Symnatec's description, it sounds like NAS does not try to block popup ads as aggresively as some other programs I've tried, only blocking those popups that show up when you enter or leave websites. Still, I've found that NAS blocks the pop up ads at most the sites I visit, and by default, allows the popups I want to see. An example of a popup you might want to see is the weekly sales cirucular at the BestBuy website, which is displayed in a popup window when you click on the weekly ad link. NAS allows this type of desirable popup to display. If you do want to see pop up or banner ads at any website, you can always turn off the blocking software with a few clicks. I keep NAS in my quick launch tool bar near XP's start button for easy access to do this. I do wish NAS allowed you to permit ads on a one time basis by holding down a hot key when a web page is loaded (as many other popup blockers do).
Symantec Support
The knowledgebase at Symantec's website, as well as the included help files, are pretty good, though I must admit that while the knowledgebase accurately assessed my Activesync problem, it didn't provide a solution that worked for me. Phone support to Symantec is expensive, at $30/incident, about the same a buying the program itself. I don't doubt it "costs" Symantec this much to provide phone support, but I find it difficult to pay as much for phone support as the program itself.
A few points to remember about Norton Antispam
1. NAS uses several spam filtering techniques, including a Bayesian filter, to identify spam. NAS strikes the best balance between identifying good and spam email of any program I've tried so far. Most other programs I've tried identify spam as nearly as well as NAS, but also identify more good email as spam.
2. NAS integrates into your POP3 email program. You'll need to occasionally correct NAS when it makes mistakes, but fortunately, NAS remembers what it learns from mistakes.
3. NAS does not coexist well with Activesync. You may not be able to use NAS to its fullest if your PocketPC is on and sync'd with your desktop. I've found that if my PocketPC is on, that although NAS marks spam email with the Norton Antispam heading correctly, but files it into my inbox instead of the Spam folder. The NAS toolbar is also missing from Outlook if the PocketPC is connected to the desktop PC. NAS works fine with Email programs not tied to Activesync (Outlook Express, for example)
4. NAS's ad blocker blocks most banner ads. You'll quickly learn there are a some banner ads worth seeing when you're shopping, reading reviews, or comparing prices.
5. NAS's popup blocker does not offer a "hot key" to temporarily allow popups. You'll need to turn the blocking feature off to see popups on a given site. Fortunately, NAS is not overly aggresive, and rarely blocks popups that are important to most users.
6. NAS uses Live update to keep its spam filters up to date and able to react to spammer's latest tricks. NAS includes updates for one year only.
7. NAS does not offer a "bounce to sender" feature for spam.
8. I found NAS' ad blockers to work with both Netscape 7 and IE 6. I have Outlook Express and Outlook 2002 installed on my system, and initially NAS appeared to work equally well with both, though almost all of my experience is with Outlook. Another epinions reviewer has reported here, that NAS can cause Outlook Express 6 to lock up under certain conditions as described in this symantec support article:
http://service1.symantec.com/SUPPORT/nip.nsf/34d620401eba781c88256d8e0076b295/ab59a5ef2227d6f3ca256dab0020be84
Outlook Express 6 does lock up on my system when the "this is spam" button is used, under conditions described in this article.
Conclusion
Norton Antispam makes a nice addition to their Internet Security Package, which also includes Norton Antivirus and firewall. When the bugs are worked out, it will be terrific. As a standalone program, its still a pretty good value, especially if you're looking for an antispam solution that more accurately marks both spam and good email as well as ad/popup blocking. The ad blocking and popup blocking software both work pretty well, but are not as user friendly, lacking a hot key override, and an easy way to permit popups on a given site. This combination of features is not included with most other antispam software, making this product worthy consideration for anyone considering a purchase of spam filtering software.
Other helpful articles on spam:
An Arstechnica article describing various antispam technologies:
http://arstechnica.com/ask-ars/2003/anti-spam/index.html
Filters unwanted email messages in any POP3-compliant email program Allowed List ensures that welcomed mail isn¿t flagged as spam Trusted Mode tags m...More at Amazon Marketplace
Epinions.com periodically updates pricing and product information from third-party sources, so some information may be slightly out-of-date. You should confirm all information before relying on it.
- Add to My Yahoo!: 
- Add to Google Homepage: 
© 1999-2009 Shopping.com, Inc.