Spam Killer

Alpha release of Spam Killer!

So why Spam Killer? The idea popped up on a very busy day when I was bombarded with a lot of work and my phone kept beeping with unwanted spam messages :-(. Frustrated, I attempted to enroll for my provider’s DND service which happened to not work. Finally, I took upon myself to build an application that fill filter these spam messages so that I could work in peace!

I got a very positive response from colleagues which inspired me to launch the application in Android market. This is my first attempt to launch an android application, so please be nice and kind enough to point out defects! I promise I will resolve them as soon as possible. I know the UI looks horrible and I will work on it.

If you are a newbie to the application (which I am sure you will be), you will find the following tips useful:

- Closely monitor spam messages for 2-3 days after your first installation. You will notice that some of your bank related transaction SMSes are getting detected as spam. This is because application initially blocks all registered telemarketers (which includes your bank as well). Once you have noticed that a particular message was detected as spam in error, you can make use of ‘whitelist’ feature that basically marks the sender as safe so that all messages from the sender will not be treated as spam. I know the application should by default contain a decent sized whitelist but unfortunately I could not find the list of complete registered telemarketers that send legitimate transaction messages. If you happen to come across the list, feel free to post it in comments. Otherwise, I will be building whitelist web sync feature so that all users do not have to go through the pain.

- Make sure you regularly update the application. I will be pushing updates regularly and trust me, you will find some new enhancements very useful.

Feature List:

- Blocks sms messages from all registered telemarketers.
Has to ability to ‘whitelist’ certain telemarketers (useful to allow sms messages from CitiBank, ICICI, etc). Standard whitelist contains CitiBank addresses only. Please mention the frequently used bank addresses or other legitimate bulk sms senders in the comments so that I can add them to standard whitelist.

- Ability to mark messages as not spam and move them to inbox.

- Ability to delete spam messages.

- Ability to see whitelist and remove a sender from whitelist

Stay tuned for the following enhancements in near future:

- Heuristic spam detection to detect spam messages from non-registered telemarketers as well.

- Whitelist web sync

- Daily spam report notification to ensure you don’t miss any important messages

- Blacklist feature

- Whitelist management UI enhancements

- Spam detection options