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Answers to some commonly asked questions
1. Does the service slow down our email? 2. Do we need to remove our existing anti spam software 3. How long does it take to setup Remote Anti Spam? 4. Do we need to modify our firewall? 5. What happens after we change our MX records? 6. How can we setup white lists? 7. What do we have to do ourselves? 8. Does this mean we can remove the anti virus software on our PC's? 9. How do we access the quarantine of blocked messages? 10. Why do you not quarantine the messages that fail the content filter check? 11. Why do other providers offer a quarantine? 12. What happens if my mailserver is down, do you queue my mail? 13. Your service is priced very competitively. How is that possible?
1. Does the service slow down our email? No, messages are delivered instantly. The service is real time which means that messages are automatically processed as they come in and if accepted, are forwarded directly onto your server immediately. The entire process can take less than a few seconds. We have recently implemented a small delay of a few seconds to each new connection from an external server. This significantly filters out the most malicious messages with heavy payloadsand in fact, many other filtering services implement some sort of similar method - back to top
2. Do we need to remove our existing anti spam software? No. In fact it would help to eliminate an even higher level of spam as messages which are tagged by our system as spam can be blocked by your desktop or server software before it reaches your mailbox. If you don't already have such software then you don't need it. But if you do, keep it.
3. How long does it take to setup Remote Anti Spam? Setting up our service is very straight forward. All you have to do is ask your ISP or web hosting company to change your domains MX record in DNS. That's usually just a few lines of text. We will provide you with a list of our MX servers for you to replace yours with. If you have access to the control panel for your domain you may be able to change this yourself. - back to top
4. Do we need to modify our firewall? For added protection you might want to setup your firewall or email server to only accept email from our servers. Some spammers bypass the information in the MX records and try to deliver straight to your server using address lists. This only applies if you have your own email server. It is not possible if you use POP3 from your ISP or hosting company. - back to top
5. What happens after we change our MX records? Once changed it can take between 5 minutes to 24 hours for servers around the world to update their information about your MX records. Therefore some servers will start to send your emails via our servers immediately while others may take up to 24 hours to start doing so. - back to top
6. How can we setup white lists? You can send us your existing white lists for inclusion. If your outgoing email goes through our servers then email addresses you have sent messages to are automatically added to the white list periodically. - back to top
7. What do we have to do ourselves? Nothing. Our service is completely managed and we have taken responsibility for all the aspects that keep you involved in the fight against spam. There's nothing to install, configure or update. We keep the spam and phishing rules up-to-date and ensure the virus definitions are also always up-to-date. - back to top
8. Does this mean we can remove the anti virus software on our PC's? Unfortunately, it doesn't. Viruses can still enter your network from the different forms of media you work with and you should still keep your anti virus software updated. Our service protects you from viruses found in incoming email only, not from viruses on CD's, DVD's, USB drives, Flash Memory sticks, etc. - back to top
9. How do we access the quarantine of blocked messages? We reject messages found in the DNS blacklists and the URI blacklists and these messages are not processed by our servers. Messages accepted by our servers but which fail the content filter check are sent on to your server for processing. Your Outlook 2003 or other software sends the tagged spam messages to your Junk E-mail folder. We do not quarantine any messages because we do not block messages which are not 100% clearly spam. So you have one less set of username/passwords to remember and one less mailbox to check. We think that that's a good thing! - back to top
10. Why do you not quarantine the messages that fail the content filter check? Because this is where false positives occur. The high majority of spam messages (well over 95%) fail Phase 1 and Phase 2 of our remote anti spam processing (see Blocking Spam) and a relatively low volume of spam messages actually get to the content filter stage. - back to top
11. Why do other providers offer a quarantine? Larger companies can benefit from an online quarantine because they can afford the cost of the resources for somebody to regularly check the online quarantine and release any legitimate messages blocked there. We know from experience that small businesses do not have this luxury and would find it easier for their employees to just check their Junk E-mail folder in Outlook (or other software), particularly if the Junk E-mail folder only receives two or three messages a week instead of 70 or eighty a day. With our spam filtering service in place, the Junk E-mail folder receives very few messages, thus making this task practical and feasible again. - back to top
12. What happens if my mailserver is down, do you queue my mail? Our servers will store your messages for up to 10 days in the event of your mailserver being unavailable. - back to top
13. Your service is priced very competitively. How is that possible? There are 3 main reasons to explain why our prices can be so low without compromising on delivery
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