bayesian spam filter

[Chris Cowles]

I use K9 (http://keir.net/k9.html) as a spam filter for Outlook 2003 in XP
Pro. It uses Bayesian logic to filter spam based on your personal
experience. It has not been enhanced for a couple of years. Over time, my
accuracy has drifted down from >99% to ~97%.

K9 inserts a spam score either as a header line or append to the subject.
OE6 can't evaluate headers in rules, so I use Outlook 2003 as my mail
client. Our license for that is Office 2003 for Students and Teachers.

I'm upgrading to Vista Ultimate soon but not immediately upgrading to
Office 2007. I eventually will and, when I do, the S&T version doesn't
include Outlook.

WinMail will suit my email and newsreader needs *IF* it has decent spam
control built in, or if it will evaluate mail headers in rules AND K9 will
run in Vista.

Can someone comment on WinMail spam handling, and on how robust the rules
are compared to Outlook 03 or Outlook 07? If weak in either regard, how
well does Thunderbird work in Vista? When I evaluated it a couple years
ago, it incorporated bayesian spam filter logic but couldn't even forward
email by rule. That killed it for me.

If TBird isn't so great, what other free or cheap options exist?

Thanks in advance.

 

[Steve Cochran]

If you have a measurement tool to do the comparison, then maybe someone
could do that, but I don't know of any.

steve

 

[Gary VanderMolen]

I've never used K9 but have heard many good reports
about it. The bad news is that the spam filters in WinMail
are not user configurable, nor do they learn from marking
a false positive as 'Not Spam.'
I have my WinMail junk filter set for the 'low', yet it still
catches a lot of false positives. So far I've been adding
those to the Safe Senders list, but since I get lots of
mail from mailing lists having hundreds of members,
that may not be feasible in the long run.

You will probably be happier continuing to use K9 with
Outlook 2003 in Vista.

Gary VanderMolen

 

[Gary VanderMolen]

WinMail will suit my email and newsreader needs *IF* it has decent spam
control built in, or if it will evaluate mail headers in rules AND K9 will
run in Vista.

Regarding the latter, take a look at:
http://forums.bluecoat.com/viewtopic.php?p=7667&sid=ae928d3ac36dac915b63ed120a03e7cb


Gary VanderMolen

 

[Frank Saunders, MS-MVP OE/WM]

In order to have it not marked as spam right click it and choose "Junk
E-mail" and then "Add to Safe Senders list".

 

[Gary VanderMolen]

Adding addresses to the Safe Senders list is feasible
only when you have a limited number of correspondents.
It's not feasible when we're talking about several thousand
correspondents.

Gary VanderMolen

 

[Chris Cowles]

Regarding the latter, take a look at:
http://forums.bluecoat.com/viewtopic.php?p=7667&sid=ae928d3ac36dac915b63ed120a03e7cb

Does the K9 referred to in that conversation
(http://www.k9webprotection.com/ ) come from the same developer (Robin
Keir) as K9 spam filter (http://keir.net/k9.html)? I think not.

K9 spam filter works locally on my computer and sends it data nowhere.
K9WebProtection seems to be in the business of gathering data about you,
for their benefit.
(http://www.k9webprotection.com/documentation/K9_privacy.pdf).

No, thanks.

 

[Frank Saunders, MS-MVP OE/WM]

Then turn it off.

Adding addresses to the Safe Senders list is feasible
only when you have a limited number of correspondents.
It's not feasible when we're talking about several thousand
correspondents.

Gary VanderMolen

 

[Gary VanderMolen]

Yes, I may wind up having to shut off the junk filter.
I'm watching it to see if there's a pattern to the false
positives, or if the problem occurs only with a small
subset of my correspondents. Is anyone else seeing
a substantial number of false positives?

Gary VanderMolen