What people generally expect from anti-spam software and filters is that they will completely eliminate spam from their inboxes. Unfortunately, because spammers seem to be working harder at getting around blocks and filters faster than the programmers of those blocks and filters can stop them, getting rid of spam entirely will likely never happen.
Don't get discouraged though, because there are things you can do to at least reduce the spam you receive, or change your email settings so that you won't have to look at the spam. It will also keep messages that you actually do want from being lost in the shuffle and routed to your junk folder or worse, your trash.
Anti-spam software, while it can't realistically block all unwanted emails, does have a number of benefits. The first of which, as you may expect, is that it will block spam to some degree. Most software is customizable and you can tell it to scan the titles and content of an email to look for certain keywords, and can block specific email addresses altogether.
Because the software is likely to already have a comprehensive list of "bad" words that it uses to filter out spam, it will need to be updated. Most anti-spam programs will offer free updates, similar to those of anti-virus programs, wherein the program will connect to the developer's website and download updated lists of keywords for its built-in filter component.
Many anti-spam programs either default or can be customized to whisk away unwanted emails so that you never actually see them. This is typically referred to as quarantining. So that you don't have to worry about welcome emails being automatically deleted, the emails caught by this filtering system are stored for a period of time so that you can make sure that nothing important gets deleted.
It is always a good idea to keep a whitelist filter. This filter is where you input the email addresses of people and websites that you want to receive email from. Each time you receive a personal email from someone not already in your protected list, add their email to the list. This is also applicable for any mailing lists you put yourself on, such as product updates from retailers, newsletters about topics you ar interested in and so on.
Microsoft's takedown of Waledac has resulted in a minor reduction in the amount of spam, according to the antispam organization, though not all researchers agree.
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