Best free "SPAM" filter

[JRCATES]

I'm curious what others regard as a good "SPAM" filter, to work with POP3 (i.e. - Outlook Express, Thunderbird, etc.) along with commercial anti-virus programs (NOD, KAV, etc.).

I'm currently using SpamKiller from McAfee (as part of the McAfee ISS), but that subscription will be expiring soon - thankfully! SpamKiller is NOT very good at all, often filtering EXPECTED emails, while allowing in obvious junk. For a program that updates itself almost daily, I'd expect better!

So is there a free one that others would recommend, and have had good experiences with?

[starfish_001]

K9 is an email filtering application that works in conjunction with your regular POP3 email program and automatically classifies incoming emails as spam (junk email) or non-spam without the need for maintaining dozens of rules or constant updates to be downloaded. It uses intelligent statistical analysis that can result in extremely high accuracy over time.

http://www.keir.net/k9.html

168 days -99.5% accurate on my sys with a combination of Trained filter, white list, and sbl-xbl.spamhaus.org list


SpamBayes is also quite good

[Eldar]

I concur with starfish_001, K9 is a very good spamfilter.
Do have a look at this topic too.

[GUI_Tex]

Use Freemail accounts.. or something like mailinator.com

[Slovak]

Spamihilator is very good, has plenty of filter plug-ins and add-ons to filter things to your specific needs. Pretty good without any additional plug-ins "out of the box". I hear K-9 is also good, and I tried it once, but found it more difficult to set up and properly train than Spamihilator, but once trained I'm sure it is just as good.

[ASM]

Spamihilator... I used it with AVG free Edition and NOD32 before. Most of the plug-in are useful.

[JRCATES]

Thanks for all of the replies. K9 looks pretty interesting...and I've seen several good reviews about it as well. One thing that was kinda funny...is I did a search for "spam filters", and saw Look 'n' Stop Lite listed! As a spam filter! I know that LNS is a personal firewall....and I'm considering at for my personal firewall.....so does that mean that LNS has pretty good built-in email (POP3) filtering rules, and that an additional spam filter wouldn't be necessary (for LNS users)?

[WSFuser]

if LnS can filter spam, someone please tell. neways if i used an email client id use teh spam filters of either thunderbird or outlook. for 3rd party solutions try mailwasher, qurb, cloudmark desktop

edit: lol, just now i figured the title said FREE spam filter. guess ill vote for popfile

[gerardwil]

I would also suggest to take a look at POPFile:
POPFile is an automatic mail classification tool. Once properly set up and trained, it will work in the background of your computer, scanning mail as it arrives and filing it however you wish. You can give it a simple job, like separating out junk e-mail, or a complicated one - like filing mail into a dozen folders. Think of it as a personal assistant for your inbox.
It might be not that easy for less experienced users.

http://popfile.sourceforge.net/old_index.html

[TonyW]

I've used K9 for a long time now, and I like its Bayesian approach to spam filtering. It's a shame the software hasn't been updated for a while tho.

[Bob D]

Another vote for open-source POPFile.
It also uses naïve Bayes algorithm.
Works quite well once trained.

[palomma]

Bayesian seems to be the best way to go.
I am very pleased with Spambully, which uses Bayesian as well as a few other techniques.
http://www.spambully.com
but it's not free, it offers a free trial, I purchased it for $29.95.

[tlu]

Originally Posted by TonyW

I've used K9 for a long time now, and I like its Bayesian approach to spam filtering. It's a shame the software hasn't been updated for a while tho.

Aside from that, K9 doesn't support secure connections over SSL. Spamihilator on the other hand supports SSL, has also Bayesian filtering and a lot of very effective plug-ins. Excellent program!

[bellgamin]

If you have heavy spam (hundreds daily) Spamihilator is the way to go. My 15 websites pull huge amounts of spam daily, with dozens of good messages that MUST not get eaten as false positives (FPs).

I have tried dozens & dozens of spam killers, both paid & free. Spamihilator is the best I have found. I've been using it for over 3 years. It's a deadly killer, plus zero FPs.

However, if you have low-to-intermediate volume spam then K9's Bayesian-plus-RegEx is quite an effective combo. Also it's fairly easy to purge K9's Bayesian files (as should be done periodically, of course).

For hand-holding I would rate Spamihilator's forum as being one of the best there is in terms of having plenty of technical expertise, being very helpful, & allowing friendly give & take among those who like that sort of thing.