Spam is not only annoying, it is dangerous. The less of it in your business, personal computer or email files, the better.

The anti spam industry continues to grow in proportion to its need, and there are many good anti spam programs out there. But your business doesn’t want good; your business wants the best. The four attributes that any top level spam program should have are these:

1. The program should be easy to customize to keep up with the latest technology.
2. It should be feature heavy
3. It should be easily installed
4. It should be consistent and stable.

Below are the top 10 anti spam programs based on this criteria.

1. SPAMfighter

This top ranked anti spam program allows the user to whitelist or blacklist any email they receive. The entire network functions as a whole, and if an email is blocked from a domain a certain number of times, it is then blacklisted from the entire community. The program also protects against email fraud such as phishing and identity theft, and also recognized spammy pictures as well as text.

2. CA Anti Spam Software

Formerly known as Qurb Anti Spam Software, this top ranked spam fighter starts working immediately upon installation. The program, which won the Editor’s Choice award in PC Magazine for three years in a row, automatically takes your whitelist from your current emails. CA also integrates very well with Outlook Express and Outlook.

3. Email Recover

After connecting to your Internet Service Provider, Email Remover gets email header info and lets you pick those headers from senders that you do not want to receive anymore. The program then deletes those mailings from the mail server.

4. Cloudmark Desktop

Made specifically for Outlook Express and Outlook users, Cloudmark is another community based program that has over one million users. The program works behind the scenes to take away all unwanted email from your inbox. The program is well known for being able to tell personal emails from spam, and will never delete a personal email. Because of its innovative network approach, Cloudmark Desktop also stops phishing emails as well.

5. ChoiceMail

ChoiceMail allows you to easily filter your emails by a number of factors, including IP address, domain, or reputation. This program works on a guilty until proven innocent formula, which requires some upfront investment; however once the initial work is done, ChoiceMail does an excellent job of controlling unwanted email.

6. MailWasher Pro

A powerful yet system draining program. However, it ranks as one of the most effective and reliable spam filters around. Perhaps as the developers overhauled the program in 2010, they created a graphic heavy program to attempt to dampen the learning curve. No matter. It is still one of the most feature laden spam filters ont he market, allowing users the power to block unwanted mail in a number of ways.

7. iHateSpam

Although this particular product only works with Microsoft Outlook, it is one of the most powerful anti spam add ons for that program. iHateSpam returns to a community based filter, and blocks according to server, IP address, header information, sender’s address, etc.

8. SpamBully

This program actually allows users to get back at spammers by bouncing unwanted emails back to them. The software also automatically reports spammers to the Federal Trade Commission and the owner of the server that the spammer is on.

9. SpamEater Pro

One of the most customizable programs on the list, the program allows the user perhaps the most freedom to make his or her own rules about filtering spam.

10. Spam Buster

If you are looking for a simple, easy to use program, this is the one for you. It makes up for its relative lack of features with simplicity.