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Introduction
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Many spam filters are available employing lots of different techniques. In my experience "learning" spam filters that use the Bayesian statistical approach out-perform most other types of filters. Not only are they better at detecting spam, they are also less liable to classify your real mail as spam. This effectiveness takes a little time to develop as the filter has to be trained to recognize your spam from your normal mail. It takes a week or so before results start becoming accurate and best results may take a month or more. As this is designed for experienced users, I will give a tip that might be confusing for the average users. Is it really a spam, or a service site you signed up for and don't want anymore? Take a look at the e-mail and if it is from a company you ordered something from or signed up to receive e-mail from, then it may be something you don't want, but is not really spam. If so unsubscribe from the site itself. Say if the e-mail is from amazon.com and you ordered from them, go to the site and unsubscribe to the newsletter etc. If it is "legitimate" spam don't click the unsubscribe link. |
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Discussion
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POPFile was one of the first Bayesian filters and is still one of the best. It works as a proxy mail server so that it can be used with any POP email client. Setup is reasonably straightforward for experienced users but beginners may be better off with Mailwasher. Spamato is a promising, free open source spam filter with a difference. Rather than rely on one Bayesian spam filter to classify spam, Spamato uses a "multifaceted spam filter system that combines a variety of anti-spam techniques". Like POPFile, it can work with any email client but additional plugins are available to integrate Spamato into Outlook, Thunderbird and the Mozilla Mail Client. Other excellent free Bayesian spam filters available include SpamBayes and K9. Both are simple to install though, like all statistical filters, they need to go through a training phase before they reach full effectiveness. A newer addition to this list is Spam Terrier from Agnitum. If you are new to Bayesian spam filters and use Outlook, you will find this program is a tad easier to install and use than SpamBayes or K9. Other spam filters to be reviewed: Spamihilater, Ella, Email remover, eXpurgate, SpamPal, Epam Experts Desktop, Cactus Spam Filter, SpamRIP, Bullguard Spam Filter, G-Lock Spam Combat, SpamWeasel, GMail Service. If you have any experience with any of these, please feel free to share that info in the forum or give your comments at the end of this article. |
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Related Products and Links
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1.1.0 
Unrestricted Freeware 
Windows 95, 98, Me, NT, 2000, XP, Vista, Mac OS, Linux, Unix
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Editor
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This software category is maintained by volunteer editor radu |
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Tags
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spam, spams, free filter, free spam filter, freeware |
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you will find mailwasher review in the spam filter for average user section
I have been using Mailwasher 2.0.28 beta for years and did not have any problem with it
It manages multiple accounts (I have 8 of them on 4 different suppliers) even web mail like yahoo, but I did not succeed in accessing my Gmail account.
Sometimes (once every 3 months or so) it suddenly freezes, I just terminate it thru task manager and restart it from my quick launch bar, and this is it, no data is lost.
It still can be found on the Internet as explained in the other section
Hope this helps!
You mention Mailwasher in the POPFile review but it gets no mention other than that
There's a freeware version of Mailwasher as well as the payware version. Free version can only handle one mail account, but it seems that it can now be a POP, Hotmail, IMAP, GMail or AOLMail account.
Ive tried to obtain a Spam Terrier license 3 times.. is this product still valid?.. they never send a e mail license to use the product..??
Maybe you can add Spam Fighter to the list of filters you will be reviewing?
Its $29 and thus... not freeware.
Thank you for confirming this is not freeware.
I'm surprised no one has has mentioned Spamihilator
http://www.spamihilator.com
This is a very simple application sits between the email server and your client so spam almost never get into the client. It does require some training and I have added my own spam words but after a few weeks you will not get any spam in your client.
It even has an option where the spam is left on the email server and is deleted when you delete the spam.
I have tried plenty of others but I keep coming back to Spamihilator.
Spamato takes 700K of RAM. It worked well, but I couldn't keep Outlook open with it installed. Spam Terrier can only monitor one inbox which for me is a deal killer.
I just wanted to take a moment to thank you for turning me on to Spam Terrier. What a GREAT little app and very easily integrated into Outlook Express as a plug-in. Nice!
http://www.extremetech.com/article2/0,2845,2342378,00.asp
your views gizmo?
is spam fighter better than the other 2?
wish to rely on you as the final authority without having to compare other reviews.
I installed spamato on outlook and it does a great job of filtering spam but it is a huge memory hog. I do not recommend it.
gmail.... any spam filter can filter out all the spam, trouble is that only a few like gmail can avoid to put almost any legitimate mail in the spam box.
Having to work through your spam box on a regular basis completely defeats the purpose of a spam filter. Therefore, if you can't use something like gmail then I would suggest getting a weaker spam filter that lets some spam through but doesn't mark good mail as spam. This is especially important if you run a business or use email for work.
I would avoid any spam filter that uses bayesian filtering like the plague (so probably most of them). I would go with gmail or there was some spam proxy, forget the name, that worked on a central database of spam messages. That is the best way to implement a spam filter, by letting users flag what is spam so that other users may benefit.
Is it possible that this section could be expanded to include web browser ad block apps?
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