Cloudmark SafetyBar Review Overall Rating:

Description

Cloudmark SafetyBar is a community based filter add-in for Microsoft Outlook and Outlook Express. It has a whitelist facility to ensure messages from friends are not filtered.

Verdict

Cloudmark SafetyBar (formerly knows as SpamNet) is a very effective solution that requires virtually no interaction from the user. In our tests it returned a very impressive accuracy rate (one of the best we have seen) of over 96%.

In our book, the only thing that lets it down is the price. $39.95 yearly is a little steep when compared to other filters available.

Installation

Installation was a simple and quick affair. The 3.3 Meg download installed with no fuss and and asked no questions during the process.

As soon as installation completes, the user us presented with a useful screen with minimal (but sufficient) instructions for Cloudmark SafetyBar's use.

Interface

In line with all "plug-in" type filters, the new user will find himself/herself with an extra toolbar in their Outlook or Outlook Express interface:

Elsewhere, the interface is pleasing and uncluttered.

Features and Operation

Daily use of Cloudmark SafetyBar is so simple and unobtrusive, you may find yourself almost disappointed that you don't need to do more!

The basic premise of community based filtering is that the community "votes" messages as being "spam" or "ham" by clicking on the toolbar provided. These "votes" are received by the central server for the community and once enough votes have been received, that message is automatically marked as spam in everybody else's inbox.

It stands to reason that this model is incapable of achieving 100% accuracy as some person (or people) have to receive the message in the first place to be able to identify it as spam. In practice, given the huge numbers in the community, the system manages a very impressive capture rate and minimal interaction is required by the individual user.

Cloudmark SafetyBar has a whitelist feature although the addresses cannot be imported from Outlook/Outlook Express or even a text file. You are left to add the addresses manually.

One difference with this filter is that it makes a distinction between spam messages and fraud messages such as the currently popular phishing scams. No mention is made of how the two types of e-mails are treated differently, or why, but there are separate buttons for "Block Spam" and "Block Fraud":

With any type of spam filter it is always encouraging to be able to see just how many spams you have stopped. With community based filters, you can glean even more satisfaction from knowing that every time you mark a message as spam, you are contributing in a direct way to stopping that message appearing in many other people's inboxes.

To encourage the user even further, a Cloudmark SafetyBar user is awarded a rating, which reflects your "trustworthiness" in the network. Your current "standing" is denoted by a coloured star which is visible on the main toolbar and outlined in the statistics display:

Overall, there is very little "tweaking" either possible or required with this filter. Quite simply, on the most part, it just works.

Accuracy

In the past, our experience of community based filters has been that they tend to return more false positives than we would like to see. This is often more prevalent if you subscribe to many newsletters. As evidenced by the figures below, the false positive rate from this test was reassuringly low.

With its final accuracy rating coming in at 96.35%, Cloudmark SafetyBar made it into the top three of the filters we have tested so far.

Conclusion

Cloudmark SafetyBar really "delivers the goods" when it comes to filtering spam. It is obviously a solid performer and proof positive that the community filter system can really work.

We would have liked to have seen some more (or at least any) help files with the application, but as this must be one of the simplest filters there is to use, we suppose they are hardly necessary.

Our biggest gripe with this filter must be the price. To many, paying $39.95 a year to be rid of their spam problem is cheap at the price, but when you look around at the other offerings which match, or exceed, this filtering accuracy with a "one time" purchase price of $10 less, the decision becomes a little harder to make.

If you do decide on the Cloudmark SafetyBar though, you can rest assured that you will be getting rock-solid filtering capability with the satisfaction of knowing that you are helping your fellow spam fighters all over the world.

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