Anti-SPAM - Software

[eisefr]

Hi ..

A question to all people which receive alot of SPAM:

How do you deal with SPAM?
Are you using a software.. and if so.. WHICH... ? :-)

Another question:
Since 2 days I am using Spamkiller from McAfee. And now I am wondering if I should register to receive updates.
Is someone using Spamkiller too and can tell me if it's worth to get those updates?


Bye from Germany
Frank

[Paranoid2000]

Spam prevention is far better than any spam cure, use throw-away email addresses and supply a different one to each person/site you deal with. With SpamGourmet, if any such alias starts receiving spam, you then know who is responsible for leaking your address (which you would not if you have given everyone the same email) and can shut it down without affecting others. SneakEmail and SpamMotel offer similar services but the Gourmet offers the most features.

[Cochise]

I use 'Spamfighter'.....works very well.......


Cochise,

[bigbuck]

Thunderbird

Originally Posted by Mozilla

Smartest Way to Stop Junk Mail
Thunderbird provides the most effective tools for detecting junk mail. Our tools analyze your e-mail and identify those that are most likely to be junk. You can automatically have your junk mail deleted or you can put it in a folder you specify, just in case you like reading junk mail.

[rdsu]

Originally Posted by bigbuck

Thunderbird

Same here

It's an excellent feature that can be trained and very easy to use...

[gerardwil]

The tools mentioned by the posters above and maybe you find some usefull info here:

http://lists.gpick.com/pages/AntiSpam_Tools.htm

[pcalvert]

Before paying for any anti-spam software, try some of the free ones. Here is one I tried and which works well:

SpamPal

Configuration of SpamPal is important. Disable any blacklists that are run by extremists (amateurs) who tend to blacklist everybody. I also configured SpamPal to consider any email sent from China, Korea, Brazil and Turkey as spam. I've found that a lot of the spam I receive comes from those countries, especially China and Korea. Since I don't normally receive legit email from those countries at my spam-infested email address, such a filter is appropriate.

Normally, when one of my email addresses becomes spam infested, I abandon it and create a new one. I only use spam filtering on one account that I don't want to completely abandon yet. I don't use that email address at all anymore; I just use aggressive spam filtering to help keep the inbox emptied out.

Phil

[bigc73542]

The spam utility built into thunderbird is really amazing it works great.

[eisefr]

I am using TheBat.. and I really would like to use it also in the future.
But Thunderbird is really a VERY good choice too.
I installed it at my brothers computer. Not a computerexpert. But he likes it better than outlook.

[meneer]

Spamassassin on my linux gateway and for the few false negatives left K9 in front of The Bat!

[Vikorr]

I know this probably isn't helpful to the discussion, but don't your ISP's filter out spam ? I get absolutely no spam at all (been with the same ISP for about 3 years now) - and I do give my email adress out to forums I subscribe to, and when I make purchases. Probably because someone will ask...my ISP is IINET in Australia. Don't know if other ISP's out there provide the same sort of service - IINET is the first one I've activated and email account with (used to use hotmail all the time).

[Eldar]

Originally Posted by Vikorr

I know this probably isn't helpful to the discussion, but don't your ISP's filter out spam ?

My ISP offers that option too, but I deactivated it a long time ago, because some messages were deleted.
Nowadays you can choose to receive the spam messages or to delete them automatically. I don't know if every ISP offers the same features.

In the past I used several tools to reduce spam, like K9, Spampal, Spamihilator, PopFile, Spam Off, Mailwasher, SpamEater Pro, Spam Alarm, Spam Blackout. Enough choice of software whether free or not.
I've tried more then I'm mentioning here and bought several.
Not easily satisfied, I guess.

The problem with most of these spam blockers was you had to switch from your email client to your spam blocker and vice versa.
Some like it this way, I don't.

So when a built-in Bayesian filter (= spam blocker) was introduced into PocoMail/Barca, I've been using it ever since with some very good results.
The Bat has also an integrated filter, called Bayesit.
Bloomba had one of the best spam blockers, but unfortunately it can't be bought anymore.

To make it short, I have several spam blockers which I don't use anymore.
There are really enough free choices, so no need to spend money like I did.
Try K9, Spamihilator, SpamPal, Popfile, ... and many more, all free which will give you excellent results.

[ronjor]

The ISP I am with uses Postini. I may see one or two virus loaded messages during an outbreak. Other than that, nothing. No spam at all.

[bigbuck]

Originally Posted by Vikorr

I know this probably isn't helpful to the discussion, but don't your ISP's filter out spam ? I get absolutely no spam at all (been with the same ISP for about 3 years now) - and I do give my email adress out to forums I subscribe to, and when I make purchases. Probably because someone will ask...my ISP is IINET in Australia. Don't know if other ISP's out there provide the same sort of service - IINET is the first one I've activated and email account with (used to use hotmail all the time).

Mine (Bigpond) does.....for an additional fee.......and they will filter viruses too for another fee.....and they'll add a firewall....for a further fee! It's a little unscrupulous IMO, that they can 'knowingly' forward spam and/or viruses unless users 'cough up' for these additional services?

Originally Posted by bigbuck

Mine (Bigpond) does.....for an additional fee.......and they will filter viruses too for another fee.....and they'll add a firewall....for a further fee! It's a little unscrupulous IMO, that they can 'knowingly' forward spam and/or viruses unless users 'cough up' for these additional services?

Ya, that's kind of counter productive and can actually increases the load on their network. I guess they just want to make a few extra bucks, but I wonder if the probable increased load from viruses and spam would actually succeed the small gains in charging customers for spam and virus scanning at the server level from the costs of the increased load.

My ISP doesn't appear to filter anything, which is more than fine with me. I don't want them controlling any content for me.

~Slightly OT~

I would like to see ISPs require the use of a firewall/AV though, which should eliminate much of the unnecessary traffic. Either you provide proof that you are employing your own solution, or you are required to use their's, at a small additional cost - as with their purchasing power they should receive a rather fair price + plus the fact that it does benefit them too, so they should pickup half the cost. Which in the end would benefit everyone on the net.

~I haven't fully thought this out, but it's my initial thoughts off the top of my head~

[Eldar]

Originally Posted by bigbuck

Mine (Bigpond) does.....for an additional fee.......and they will filter viruses too for another fee.....and they'll add a firewall....for a further fee! It's a little unscrupulous IMO, that they can 'knowingly' forward spam and/or viruses unless users 'cough up' for these additional services?

You've to pay for those services?
My ISP provides anti-spam, virus check for free.
No firewall though.

[bigbuck]

Originally Posted by Dog

Ya, that's kind of counter productive and can actually increases the load on their network. I guess they just want to make a few extra bucks, but I wonder if the probable increased load from viruses and spam would actually succeed the small gains in charging customers for spam and virus scanning at the server level from the costs of the increased load.

My ISP doesn't appear to filter anything, which is more than fine with me. I don't want them controlling any content for me.

~Slightly OT~

I would like to see ISPs require the use of a firewall/AV though, which should eliminate much of the unnecessary traffic. Either you provide proof that you are employing your own solution, or you are required to use their's, at a small additional cost - as with their purchasing power they should receive a rather fair price + plus the fact that it does benefit them too, so they should pickup half the cost. Which in the end would benefit everyone on the net.

~I haven't fully thought this out, but it's my initial thoughts off the top of my head~

You're right there Steve. It's about time that ISPs started taking a bit more responsibility for their 'service'.
For instance; Mum (who's 70 and surfs a little and uses email) recently got a bogus email pretending to be from Bigpond (her ISP also), which read "important info about your account", with an attachment that Mum opened! Bang! MyDoom virus! Now this had me wondering why Bigpond would allow stuff to go through that was clearly not from them??

[bigbuck]

Originally Posted by Eldar

You've to pay for those services?
My ISP provides anti-spam, virus check for free.
No firewall though.

I've paid a couple of bucks for just the Spam filter Eric, which I probably didn't need anyway. Thunderbird was handling my spam (only maybe 5-6 a month) very well indeed...

I really think all ISPs should be providing spam/virus filters built into their contract pricing. They really shouldn't be an 'additional' pay for service. It just gives average users a choice not to use them.

[dread]

I use mcafee spamkiller and yes I would register. Here is another post about spam though http://www.wilderssecurity.com/showthread.php?t=43565. As far as email clients go thunderbird is good at filtering but still not as good as mcafee spamikiller though, I use thunderbird to.

[MikeBCda]

I've been quite happy with my ISP's Spamguard and Virusguard, both handled by Postini and no extra charge for either one. A little spam does slip past Spamguard, maybe all of 4 or 5 messages a day, but I don't have "strictness" cranked up to the highest notch.

And Virusguard (I think it uses the McAfee engine) works so well that I've never really had a chance to give my own mail scanner (avast) a fair test, since the garbage never gets to me. Admittedly it does have the option, for anything intercepted, to "deliver as is", but why play Russian roulette?

No problems with losing stuff to either system, either -- anything intercepted gets "quarantined" for a week, to give me a chance to skim through the list (and OK delivery, in the rare case that's appropriate). I'll typically drop in once a day to take a quick look and (usually) just dump everything.

[Clweb]

A good antispam software, with rules for subject AND for sender is Ouclock.
Look here:
http://www.outclock.org/index_en.html

[sweater]

I am just using Yahoomail... so I think they'll handle that for me.

[ErikAlbert]

I use Thunderbird and I configured it in such a way, that opening and closing (two clicks) is enough to get rid of all my spam-emails.
Thunderbird is the very first email-program I open with pleasure every time.
To hell with MS Outlook 2xxx and MS Outlook Express.
Once again M$ has alot to learn from the competition and M$ is the living proof, that you don't make good softwares with lots of money, you need BRAINS to do this. Poor, poor, poor M$.

[TonyW]

I use K9 with Outlook Express, which seems to be effective. The overall accuracy seems to be 98.97% at the mo.

[Slovak]

I don't know why everyone brags about Thunderbird's spam fighting abilities, I personally think it stinks compaired to Eudora's spam fighting. My Eudora learned spam filtering in about two days and still catches about 98% of the spam I get. I have tried Thunderbird in the past, and have recently given it another try, and after two weeks of training the spam filter by also marking things as not junk, it still misses about 40% of the spam I get. IMO if all it does is catch 60% of the spam then it's useless.