Comments on: Need spam filter recommendations

Question: Need spam filter recommendations

Newstuffoldstuff — Sat, 13 Sep 2008 10:38:39 -0800

Help -- I'm drowning in spam. I'm looking for a spam filter that is reliable and won't go nuts with my Norton 360 security system. I had a filter that I loved (Mailblocks -- a challenge based system) but aol bought the company to put it out of business. Any recommendations?

By: zippy

zippy — Sat, 13 Sep 2008 11:13:30 -0800

You can forward your mail to Google and let them to the filtering. In my experience, they do a fantastic job swatting down spam.

By: iamabot

iamabot — Sat, 13 Sep 2008 11:27:17 -0800

It would be useful to know how you access your mail, what client you use, and if possible who your provider is.

By: rjt

rjt — Sat, 13 Sep 2008 11:36:56 -0800

I have a vanity domain and use Gmail for domains. Their filter is very very good, and I see maybe 1 or 2 out of the 2000 spam I get every month.

By: mkultra

mkultra — Sat, 13 Sep 2008 11:39:11 -0800

Postini (bought by Google and incorporated into Gmail) is, far and away, the best spam filter out there, and I've tried out several. If you've got your own domain, Gmail for domains is free as long as you don't have a ton of accounts.

By: Ookseer

Ookseer — Sat, 13 Sep 2008 12:06:50 -0800

For typical use, Google as mentioned above is great. You don't evne have to use gmail proper if you don't like it. When I did this I had my server forward all email to a gmail account, then set a filter on that gmail account to send the non-spam back to me.

For a proper diagnosis: What OS/Client/system are you using for email? What is your threshold spam and false positives? How much are you getting? How much can you live with?

I use Spam Assassin set aggressively with custom rules, but it may or may not be an option for you. I also use filters in Thunderbird to separate incoming mail to "known" and "unknown" folders (ie: Are you in my address book or not).

I get very little spam, but I get some false positives too, so I wouldn't recommend it if you can't lose any 'ham'.

By: twiggy

twiggy — Sat, 13 Sep 2008 13:30:20 -0800

You can actually do better than just forwarding to gmail, if you have your own domain name. A domain name is $7/year on Godaddy if you do a google search for coupons... and google will host mail@yourdomain.com for free.

Benefits:
- yourdomain.com never changes. If you change ISPs you won't have to tell everyone a new email address
- yourdomain.com is more professional looking on a resume than football-luvr08@hotmail.com ....
- google apps is awesome, has fantastic spam filtering on the gmail service (which still allows IMAP and POP mail usage if you don't want to use their webmail), and provides other services for yourdomain.com as well.

By: Class Goat

Class Goat — Sat, 13 Sep 2008 14:21:27 -0800

If you don't like the idea of Google processing all your mail for their database (which they are permitted to do under the use agreement) and if you use a standard POP3 email client on Windows, then I highly recommend K9. It's free, it runs locally on your own computer, and it works extremely well as long as you spend a bit of time at the beginning telling it what you do and do not want to see.

I've used it for years and I love it.

It's a proxy. Your mail program talks to K9, and K9 talks to your mail host. It processes all email coming back and, using its Bayesian filtration and its database, it tags spam with a special header line, which you can set up. Then you tell your email program to ashcan anything with that header line, and you're all set.

After a brief period of training, it's typical for Bayesian filters to have a better than 99% accuracy rate.

By: MiltonRandKalman

MiltonRandKalman — Sat, 13 Sep 2008 17:19:05 -0800

I was getting inundated with spam, and Thunderbirds built-in filters were not cutting it. I now use Popfile. Since installing it, its scanned 22,591 emails since February with a correct classification rate of 98.37%. I'd be dead without it. Works on POP3 and IMAP. Interface leaves a bit to be desired but only takes about 10 minutes to setup and its free

By: Class Goat

Class Goat — Sat, 13 Sep 2008 18:25:49 -0800

Popfile and K9 are essentially the same, except that K9 has a much nicer interface, and K9 is Windows-only.

By: damn dirty ape

damn dirty ape — Sat, 13 Sep 2008 20:45:43 -0800

If you have an older version of outlook or outlook express you can install spambayes for free.