Orrie said:
To fight spam - and viruses/worms -- I use a program named SpamBuster
(
www.contactplus.com) that displays a list of the e-mails waiting on
the ISP's server. You then delete the spam before opening your e-mail
program. If you're not sure about a message, you can view the header
or the text to see if you want it or not.
SpamBuster is free for a version with some innocuous ads at the top
of the screen (it isn't spyware; it does not connect out to download
new ads), but with no support. There's a paid version with no ads and
support. I use the freebie. The program comes with many common types
of spam already recognized and it's easy to add new ones to the
blacklist. You can also set up a "white list" in an Exceptions file
of people whose e-mails you welcome. It's much faster to look through
the e-mails and check off the spam on the server without taking the
time to download them. SpamBuster does not work with AOL or Hotmail,
though, but then again, neither does Outlook.
Orrie
Tis easier and without and spam (ads) to use Magic Mail Monitor which
has some rudimentary rules you can define. So you can have it poll for
e-mail and still go through SpamPal to detect which ones are spam.
SpamPal marks suspect e-mail with a header (or optionally with a tag
inserted inserted into the Subject) that you can use a rule to determine
what you want to do with it. Since Magic has rules, you can use a near
equivalent of the one you define in Outlook to handle that spam,
including deleting it from the server. It keeps a log of deletions by
rules so you can check if there was a false positive that got deleted.
You can have whitelists, blacklist, and other rules in Magic, too. So
basically I leave Magic running as an e-mail monitor and with its rules
and SpamPal then it can delete e-mails off the server without ever
bothering to notify me about new e-mails that are spam and getting rid
of them before Outlook ever tries to download them (which would then
also use SpamPal again but then the spam is already gone by Magic's
server-side anti-spam delete rule). Since SpamPal works on *where* the
spam originated (by using DNS/RBL blacklists), Magic does NOT have to
download the body of the e-mail. It can just download the headers (to
keep it fast) to detect and delete spam. And it's all free! I like
free (although you can donate if you feel so compelled to help support
the authors in their fight against spam).
With Magic and SpamPal, I don't have to get bothered with banner ads
(that have to waste bandwidth to show up), I don't have to pay to get
non-crippled or advertising-free versions, more than one account is
supported (as opposed to the 1-account limit for MailWasher), and by
using YahooPOPs and Hotmail Popper than I also have POP3 access to those
webmail services.
I tried using PopTray because it is another e-mail monitor that has
rules. Unfortunately, its "header" rule (to look for strings in the
headers) is not reliable. Eventually Magic will get regular expressions
making it far more potent than PopTray (and maybe even Outlook).
The only irritation that I've run into when using an e-mail monitor
which has rules (so I can delete spam at the server without ever getting
bothered to be notified about the crap) is that sometimes the spam is
too knew to be blacklisted. So I might see a spam still listed in Magic
(because it hasn't been identified as spam yet) but later when I open
Outlook and download the e-mail then it is known by then to be spam and
SpamPal will then mark it and my anti-spam rule in Outlook will delete
it. So the Outlook rule catches the leak that Magic missed because the
spam was too knew to be known as spam because Magic is polling for new
e-mails every 5 or 10 minutes (you configure different poll intervals
for each account).
So for filtering:
- I enable the spam filter on my ISP e-mail account, in Yahoo, and in
Hotmail.
- SpamPal marks the spam which a rule can decide how to handle (i.e.,
delete it). Any POP3/IMAP capable client can use SpamPal, like Outlook
[Express] and Magic.
- Magic polls at short intervals to tell me when there is new e-mail
(but there is no notification for new e-mails that were detected as
spam).
- Magic has rules that I can use to see the SpamPal tag. The rule will
delete the spam at the server. I don't get bothered with notification
of the spam e-mail by Magic (my choice). I don't waste bandwidth or
time to later download the spam into Outlook (through SpamPal) and then
delete it - because the spam already got deleted by a server-side
anti-spam rule in Magic. And because Magic polls at short intervals and
has rules to delete spam at the server, my accounts don't get disabled
because my quota got used up with the spam. You don't have to use rules
in Magic. I suppose you could let it perform like SpamBuster,
MailWasher, and other spam-detecting e-mail monitors where YOU have to
waste time plodding through the e-mails to see which ones they detected
as spam, which ones they missed, and then manually perform all the
deletes at the server.
- If the spam is too knew to get on the public blacklists (so Magic
doesn't know it is spam yet) then it might still get caught as spam when
I later open Outlook to retrieve my e-mails (through SpamPal).
- I think MailWasher has rules (or conditions) but its restriction of
supporting only 1 e-mail account for their freebie version got it
crossed off the list before I even bothered to download it. I didn't
see any mention of rules in SpamBuster. PopTray has slightly better
rules than Magic but PopTray's "header" rules don't work reliably.
Magic has rules and regular expressions are planned.
- About a dozen rules in Outlook catch a few more leaks (actually most
are non-spam nuisance e-mails that I don't want to see).
You also have to consider the attitude of the authors regarding their
anti-spam products. SpamBuster and MailWasher are trying to make a buck
by hoping you'll get fed up with their crippled or spamvertized freebie
versions to buy their "pro" version. SpamPal's author does it all for
free. In fact, he allows reuse of his code in other commercial
products - and for free! - like in SpamSpector which only added an
install wizard and wants to charge $30 for an exact duplicate of the
code in SpamPal (but supposedly they will provide support instead of you
relying on untimely, delayed, or incomplete help in a forum)! See
SpamPal's forum at
http://snurl.com/31yp for a discussion about
SpamSpector. Like SpamSpector, SpamBuster also rides atop the public
and free DNS/RBL blacklists that are used by these products (and by
SpamPal) but without any remuneration to those anti-spam sources for all
their work. Remuneration need not be money as these paid-for products
could pump some of their revenues back into the community by providing
mirror servers for the blacklists and downloads. So far, I haven't hear
of any paid-for commercial products supporting the anti-spam community
and instead are just looking to make a buck off of the spam problem.
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