It is estimated that Americans own, use and operate approximately 50 million e-mail accounts. For a product or service seller, who predominantly works online, that represents nearly 50 million prospective clients.

This universe of untapped potential customers has proved difficult to resist for many people. And unfortunately, the ones who exploit it the most are spammers who send across spam e-mails.

Most of the unsolicited e-mail that you get in your mailbox, may be categorized as spam.

The typical traits of a spam e-mail are that it is usually, if not always, addressed to several people, pitches a product or information that is useless or irrelevant to you and comes to you as a message several times, with no un-subscribe option.

Of course, this is only a broad generalization. Spammers today have found ways and means of beating the system to get their message across.

There are a number of anti spam tools and software available on the Internet. Basically, anti spam software has the following attributes.

It helps you control the spam emails that enter your inbox. It does this by enabling anti spam filters and blockers to keep out known and recognized spammers.

It enables you to wage an anti-spam war by specifying custom filters, based on subject, domain name, specific words in the body of the e-mail etc.

Anti spam software also allows you the ability to segregate friends from spammers, thus ensuring that genuine mails get to you.

Considering that spam goes hand in hand with other malicious Internet clutter like viruses and Trojans, it is not surprising to note that several virus protection companies have joined in the anti spam war.

Symantec Corporation has its own product – Symantec Brightmail Anti Spam – to battle spam. There is also a Norton version – the Norton Anti Spam.

Microsoft too offers its own version of an anti spam software. A look at any reputed computer magazine will also show you a number of anti spam products.

Finally, an internet search could reveal lots of anti spam products that you can read about, understand and buy to suit your specific needs.

anti-spam-software.com has a proprietary software called Spam agent that can be used to weed out spam. spamkiller.com is another anti spam site worth visiting.

And www.spambutcher.com, as the name suggest takes anti spam software to another level! But not all anti spam software are commercial products.

Recognizing the need to weed out spam from the Internet, a number of individuals and corporations offer a basic version of anti spam software as freeware or shareware.

Webattack.com for instance has some pretty nifty anti spam tools and software that you can download and use.

Nonags.com has an entire section dedicated to anti spam software, most of which are free to download and use for individuals.

Other popular sites like Download junction also offer a wide array of anti spam software for individuals.

Spam, which is already an irritant today, is slowly growing into a problem that needs to be weeded out in order to keep the Internet free and global.

The more spammers clog up bandwidth and irritate users with their spam, the more anti spam protection users will equip themselves with.

Ultimately, it will defeat the very purpose of communication over the internet, something that we all share and enjoy today. So, go the anti-spam way and discover how refreshing the experience can be.