Anti-Spam Resources for AOL Users

Many commercial anti-spam filters don't support America Online Users. AOL has historically used a completely proprietary protocol to provide access to email messages. This has made creating third-party utilities to filter email difficult.

In recent years, AOL has made its email servers accessible via the IMAP protocol. This development is a major win for users. Users can download their AOL email directly into Outlook. Many anti-spam applications can now support AOL.

While support for IMAP isn't as universal as the more common POP3, it is a well documented standard, and is not difficult to write software for. In most ways IMAP is a superior protocol to POP3. Compared to POP3 it provides improved security and better support for reading email while offline.

In addition to providing its own spam blocker system, AOL has also been involved in extensive efforts to combat spam using legal methods. In recent years the company has filed dozens of lawsuits. It has also introduced a controversial program to charge mailers in order to insure message delivery.

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