How to Kick Out the Trash

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Are your fingers tired of deleting the daily influx of junk e-mail one message at a time? Don't despair. Most services that provide Internet or Web-based e-mail also offer free tools that will take out the trash for you (although if you're not careful, they will throw birth announcements out with the bath water). If you need something a little more discriminating, there is plenty of software you can buy that will help you filter your own mail. There's still no such thing as a 100% spam-free In box, but if you're willing to make the effort, you can keep the e-noise down to a dull roar.

A survey of the field, starting from the top:

--AOL The largest Internet provider is also the No. 1 conduit for spam, which may explain why each new version boasts ever more powerful spam protection. New mail controls let you set up custom filters, but they leave a lot of room for improvement. For example, you can create "allow" and "block" lists on AOL, but there's no shortcut for uploading an entire address book. You have to type or paste them in one by one. Nor can you autopopulate your allow list with each new person you e-mail. Your best bet may be to simply reshuffle your In box according to the type of sender. AOL marks all incoming mail with one of three icons: a yellow envelope for mail from People I Know (based on your address book and Buddy List), a parcel with string identifies mail from bulk senders, and an orange envelope and magnifying glass for messages from unknown senders. Look for new tools in the next version, AOL 9.0, due out this summer.

--EARTHLINK Launched in late May, EarthLink's SpamBlocker does everything AOL's mail controls do and more, including several opportunities to retrieve legitimate mail that you might otherwise miss. Once you activate Suspect Mail Blocking, your personal address book becomes your white list (EarthLink's version of AOL's allow list). Rather than block new senders entirely, EarthLink sends them a "challenge response" that will effectively cut off bulk mailers--and probably annoy some friends in the process. You can request daily or weekly reports that list the headers from messages that have been held up, giving you a chance to okay delivery. And you can set your mail preferences to automatically white-list new people you send mail to.

--MSN For subscribers, MSN's Version 8 provides system-wide filters that are smart enough to intercept a fair percentage of incoming junk mail before it lands in your In box. The junk is deposited into a separate folder from which you can retrieve messages that shouldn't have been blocked. True to its geeky heritage, Microsoft provides tools for custom filtering that offer users more flexibility than AOL's mail controls, though AOL is busy playing catch-up.