The Best Antispam/Client Side award didn't even exist last year, but companies are increasingly seeing the need for a multilayered approach to battling spam, so client-based spam fighters are becoming more prevalent. Symantec's Norton AntiSpam is the clear winner here, getting nearly half (49 percent) of the votes cast, but Sunbelt Software's iHateSpam 4.0 also made a strong showing at 32 percent--proving that it's a force to be reckoned with on both the server and client side.

Norton AntiSpam works with POP3 email programs to filter unwanted email messages out of your inbox. Its filtering engine learns what is and isn't spam by analyzing your outgoing messages, and it uses this information to detect and flag unsolicited messages. Norton AntiSpam also lets you set up allowed-sender and blocked-sender lists, and the software blocks Web page pop-up and banner ads. The product runs on Windows XP Home/XP Pro/2000 Pro/Me/98.