You would be surprised at the number of people who sign up but never receive their confirmation email because some filter has swallowed it on route, or their email box has rejected delivery because it is overflowing with spam messages that have got through and clogged up their inbox. Those message bounce and I receive notification about it in my inbox.

Every once in a while, though, I see something else. And when I see this, I know I am dealing with a smart prospective client. I see an email message that has been sent from Spam Arrest. It is an automated message that has been sent from the prospective client's Spam Arrest inbox in response to my own automated confirmation email. It tells me that my prospective client is never going to see my message unless I perform a simple task that verifies a human being is behind my message, and not just some mail robot used by a spammer.

To get my confirmation message through I am required to visit a Spam Arrest web page and type into a text box a word displayed in an image on the page. Once I have done this I have proved that a human is behind my confirmation email, and it gets delivered to my prospective client. Had I been a spammer sending an unsolicited email I would not have attempted to respond to the Spam Arrest verification process. My "junk mail" would not have got through.

What my smart prospective clients do to stop junk mail from getting through to their email inboxes, you can do too. I'll tell you more about exactly how Spam Arrest works in the remainder of this lens.

But if you want to watch a really clear, and mildly entertaining, animated explanation of the Spam Arrest spam filtering process just click on the image to the left. As always, the woman is in complete control of the situation :)

When you visit Spam Arrest and sign up for their service, you will be given your own @spamarrest.com email address. In order to protect the inboxes of any of your existing email accounts you can do one of the following two things. You can simply forward mail to those accounts to your Spam Arrest email address. Or you can arrange to have Spam Arrest periodically poll those accounts.

All of your valid non-spam-tagged email will be placed into your Spam Arrest inbox. You can then access those messages using either the POP3 or IMAP methods which are available in your email program (e.g. Outlook or Eudora). Alternatively, you can use your web browser of preference and read your mail by logging into the Spam Arrest webmail system.

With Spam Arrest you'll find that you can easily pre-configure your account to allow certain known users to send mail to you. That way, they are never challenged.

You can do this by authorizing specific email addresses, domains, and even entire mailing lists. This can either be done manually, or you can elect to use Spam Arrest's easy-to-use import tools.

Spam Arrest also provides you with convenient disposable email sub-addresses. These will allow you to accept messages from unknown senders and automated systems without at the same time exposing your real email address.

Spam Arrest works because it uses Challenge/Response technology to block the spam. Emails sent from unrecognized sources will automatically be sent a response message that requests a human verify the source of the message. Spammers cannot get around this one very critical step.

When the, as yet unknown, sender clicks on the link contained in the Spam Arrest request email, they will be taken to a web page where they are "challenged" to type in a word that is hidden within either a graphic or an audio file (in case the user should be visually-impaired).

Once the sender has successfully completed their "response", their email message is forwarded to your inbox, and they are then added to your authorized sender list so that you can received their future messages.

The challenge/response process is very easy for people to deal with, but impossible for automated systems to deal with. Spambots cannot circumvent this technology.

Any emails that are sent from unauthorized senders will be held in your Spam Arrest "unverified" folder for 7 days.

You can access these "zombied" emails when you need to by logging into the Spam Arrest website. You can then manually approve any senders from whom you wish to receive further email.

If you are still not sure whether Spam Arrest is right for you, you can try it absolutely free for 30-days. Subscription cost is just a few dollars per month for spam free sanity. And if you are unsatisfied, you can simply cancel your subscription at any time.

Start your free Spam Arrest trial today

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