McAfee SpamKiller

[anon]

I use McAfee products for my virus protection programs. A while back I
purchased SpamKiller and I liked it. Several weeks ago I had a conflict
issue with another software program and the tech support people suggested
that I uninstall my SpamKiller to see if it was contributing to the problem.
It was not. I have since resolved the software conflict issue and I wanted
to reinstall my Spamkiller. I went back to the McAfee site thinking that I
could just reinstall it since I had already purchased it. Not so! Plan "B"
was to download and use the "free trial" version thinking that I could work
the pending details with McAfee. That is in process. My problem is that I
can't seem to get SpamKiller started since the reinstall. Previously it
would activate itself, segregate the spam and then give me an audible
signal. For some reason it's not doing that now and in fact I cannot seem
to engage it at all. What am I doing wrong? Do I need to reconfig
something, i.e., Outlook Express 6.0, etc.? Please help.

Thank you,

 

[alexy]

I use McAfee products for my virus protection programs. A while back I
purchased SpamKiller and I liked it. Several weeks ago I had a conflict
issue with another software program and the tech support people suggested
that I uninstall my SpamKiller to see if it was contributing to the problem.
It was not. I have since resolved the software conflict issue and I wanted
to reinstall my Spamkiller. I went back to the McAfee site thinking that I
could just reinstall it since I had already purchased it. Not so! Plan "B"
was to download and use the "free trial" version thinking that I could work
the pending details with McAfee. That is in process. My problem is that I
can't seem to get SpamKiller started since the reinstall. Previously it
would activate itself, segregate the spam and then give me an audible
signal. For some reason it's not doing that now and in fact I cannot seem
to engage it at all. What am I doing wrong? Do I need to reconfig
something, i.e., Outlook Express 6.0, etc.? Please help.

Thank you,

Unsolicited advice: Try a bayesian spam filter such as spambayes,
popfile, or others (DAGS). You won't look back!

Read about the approach at www.paulgraham.com/spam.html.

 

[Bill]

Please help.

Contact Network Associates. They're the ones that sold it to you.

 

[alexy]

Contact Network Associates. They're the ones that sold it to you.

Based on my experience with that strategy, I'd suggest that he would
get more help by posting his problem in alt.fan.madonna.

 

[Peter Maranci]

Based on my experience with that strategy, I'd suggest that he would
get more help by posting his problem in alt.fan.madonna.

Indeed. I bought SpamKiller 4 weeks ago, and ever since it has been
having HUGE conflicts with - get this - McAfee VirusScan. Every
virus-infected email blocked by SpamKiller is being detected as a
virus by VirusScan. It took me a long time to figure this out, though;
mostly I just kept getting dozens of virus warnings from VirusScan
every day, and I thought that my system was infected up the wazoo.

I've spent over 20 hours online with McAfee "support", and EVERY
SINGLE TIME they've been wrong. Plus those goddamn automatic phrases
are really irritating. "(Name), I can help you with this virus
problem." NO YOU CAN'T! NONE OF YOU CAN! I finally made up my own set
of macros to parrot back all the information that they always ask for.

They finally escalated my problem ten days ago after two annoying
hours with a tech, and ten minutes into my conversation with the
senior technician the connection was lost - on his end, not mine. Took
me an hour to reach another technician, and when I tried to get him to
escalate me right away he claimed he was a senior tech - which he
wasn't, of course.

Eventually I got them to agree to call or email me. Never heard
anything. Contacted them again the next day, they promised to email me
within three hours. Nothing.

Or so I thought. I checked the SpamKiller blocked email, and sure
enough: SpamKiller had blocked email that day from the McAfee
Escalation Team. Apparently it "looked like spam".

Eventually I had an email exchange where the guy decided that
SpamKiller was the problem (duh) and recommended reinstallation. It
didn't help, so I emailed back telling him so.

That was a week ago. I haven't heard from him or anyone at McAfee
since. As jokes go, McAfee stopped being funny a while ago.

 

[alexy]

Indeed. I bought SpamKiller 4 weeks ago, and ever since it has been
having HUGE conflicts with - get this - McAfee VirusScan. Every
virus-infected email blocked by SpamKiller is being detected as a
virus by VirusScan. It took me a long time to figure this out, though;
mostly I just kept getting dozens of virus warnings from VirusScan
every day, and I thought that my system was infected up the wazoo.

I've spent over 20 hours online with McAfee "support", and EVERY
SINGLE TIME they've been wrong. Plus those goddamn automatic phrases
are really irritating. "(Name), I can help you with this virus
problem." NO YOU CAN'T! NONE OF YOU CAN! I finally made up my own set

That was a week ago. I haven't heard from him or anyone at McAfee
since. As jokes go, McAfee stopped being funny a while ago.

I followed much the same experience with a request for refund, and
notification that I was disputing the charge with my cc company. Of
course, I never heard back from that, either!

But check out my earlier post in this thread. SpamKiller is hugely
ineffective compared to the alternatives.

 

[Peter Maranci]

I followed much the same experience with a request for refund, and
notification that I was disputing the charge with my cc company. Of
course, I never heard back from that, either!

But check out my earlier post in this thread. SpamKiller is hugely
ineffective compared to the alternatives.

If only I'd known that BEFORE paying for SpamKiller. Now I'll have to
see if I can uninstall SpamKiller without uninstalling VirusScan, I
guess. I only hope Spambayes or Popfile can work well with Forte's
Agent.

Oh, about my McAfee situation: I finally got an email back from that
senior tech, ten days later. He's been trying to get the case
reassigned to someone who knows SpamKiller as well as VirusScan. Case
pending.

 

[alexy]

If only I'd known that BEFORE paying for SpamKiller. Now I'll have to
see if I can uninstall SpamKiller without uninstalling VirusScan, I
guess. I only hope Spambayes or Popfile can work well with Forte's
Agent.

Are you using Agent for mail? I use it as news reader, and know that
it will act as mail client, but have never used it that way. Either
will probably work with agent as a mail client.

If you are talking about getting a program to screen your newsgroups,
popfile has that feature as a pre-release for testing. I haven't read
up on it.

BTW, Eudora v6 has built-in Bayesian filtering (paid version only)
which I find very effective, and the latest netscape mail client also
has it. I'm experimenting with popfile because of its ability to sort
into buckets beyond spam/nonspam, and once it is adequately "trained"
I will probably turn off the Eudora spam filtering and rely only on
popfile.

To give you an idea about the effectiveness of this approach, of the
last 700 emails, about 550 were spam. The Eudora filter missed about
6-7 of those, and in occasionally looking at my junk folder, I found
3-4 that should not have been there. For me, that is a BIG improvement
over spamkiller, and this program is still "learning" what I consider
spam. For popfile, those figures are 24 false positives and 34 false
negatives (Eudora had already been trained some in this period, but
popfile was starting with NO knowledge of what constituted spam). That
is about like spamkiller, but spamkiller was not improving, while most
of these popfile errors were early in the learning process and it is
getting better every day.

 

[anon]

Alex: I took your advice and got PopFile. Unfortunately I'm dead in the
water. How do you start the damn thing? I've been through the docs over
and over again, but I don't see anywhere where is just specifically says how
to go about turning it on so that it can start filtering. Help?

Thank you,

 

[alexy]

Alex: I took your advice and got PopFile. Unfortunately I'm dead in the
water. How do you start the damn thing? I've been through the docs over
and over again, but I don't see anywhere where is just specifically says how
to go about turning it on so that it can start filtering. Help?

Thank you,

Glad to help if I can. I found the docs somewhat lacking. But this is
so far off-topic that we should probably take it to email. Give me a
hint about how to "demunge" your address.