Spam Terrier sits, stays, doesn't do much else.

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Entry posted by Flack · August 9, 2007

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Between all the e-mail accounts I have funneling into Outlook I am now approaching 200 spam messages a day. I've written several mail rules that filter a lot of those incoming messages directly into my trash pile, but dozens of them are still getting through. Fed up with constantly deleting messages, I set out Tuesday to find a program that would help me with spam.

The first program I found was Spam Terrier, which had the two major features I was looking for: it works with Outlook Express, and it's free. I quickly downloaded and installed the program, which integrates directly into Outlook Express. At the top of my mail window I now have a few additional buttons, including "Mark as Spam" and "Mark as Not Spam." According to the documentation, once the program "learns" what is and isn't spam, it will automatically begin filtering junk mail out for me. The program is incredibly simple to set up and configure. So far, I've only run into one problem.

It hasn't caught a single spam e-mail.

Not one. I've even cranked the program's slider up to "delete everything that could possibly be spam" which comes with a caveat that it might also have quite a few false positives ... nothing. Offers for viagra, fake watches and loans continue to roll in at their usual pace.

I haven't decided if I haven't given Spam Terrier enough time to learn, or if this is simply a case of getting what you pay for. I'll give the ol' dog a week before taking him back to the pound.

EDIT: After searching Google I found lots of other people having the same problem. It's like having a guard dog that's always asleep. Pointless. Looks like it's back to the drawing board. Stupid mutt.

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EricBall 182

Posted August 10, 2007

I used SpamBayes (also free) with good success for a long while. It helped that, at the time, I had a large spam folder which I was able to feed it to start with. It generally trained well. However, I recently started to funnel everything through a Gmail account to take advantage of their spam filters for the following reasons.

1. Since SpamBayes is local I still end up downloading everything only to have to load up my Deleted folder. (Which could then potentially still be found by my son, although that's a future concern.)

2. When I'm on vacation, the spam clogs up the server side email storage. Gmail also means I can read that email on vacation.

3. My spam to ham ratio was so out of whack I was worried the random phrases in spam would poison the filter, leading to false positives.