Josh's Blog

Spam is a problem for everyone nowadays. If you run a Microsoft Exchange server, finding a cheap spam filtering solution is not easy. Most commercial programs want to charge you by the mailbox and most open-source solutions are meant for Unix like systems.

Open Relay Filter Enterprise Edition by vamsoft ( http://www.vamsoft.com/ ) costs $200 per server and provides a very comprehensive list of anti-spam features. It offers greylisting, Active Directory integration, SURBL support, and much more. It even will work with open-source software like ClamAV and SpamAssassin. Vamsoft offers a 30 trial version, too. If you run a Microsoft Exchange server, it is certainly worth a look.

For some time I have been looking for a good, free content filter to be able to recommend for people to use. Most content filters are just extra software that you put on your computer, but you have to configure them, they slow things down, and they are just one more thing to go wrong. There are a few hardware or proxy solutions out there, but they are very pricey.

So along comes ScrubIT (http://www.scrubit.com/). All you have to do is change your DNS settings to use their servers, and your internet experience should be filtered. This really is a long over due service, in my opinion.

ScrubIT is planning to offer a paid version of their service that will give you control over the filtering, but the free service is supposed to remain free. This is a free service that I have needed for some time.