Anti-Spam Software for Mom? 106
daemondev asks: "As a software engineer and FreeBSD user, I've had no problem setting up and using the early anti-spam solutions like Spam-Assassin, TMDA and PopFile. I'm reasonably happy with where I am today, but it certainly could still be better! On the other hand, these solutions are not at all appropriate for my mom, who now has a huge spam problem (she really doesn't need all of that Viagra). I'm looking for something that works "out of the box" and doesn't require a lot of in depth knowledge about email and text filters, and which ideally doesn't need to be updated and replaced continuously. She uses Outlook 2000 on Windows ME. Has anyone found a good package that they would trust to stop spam but that's easy enough for their mom to use?"
2 are ok (Score:1, Informative)
Mail for OS X seems good also.
I know that doesn't answer your question... does she right click and add to junk email senders list? Not real effective anymore, but it will get a few of them.
Is she using POP3 or IMAP?
Do it yourself (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Do it yourself (Score:2, Interesting)
My parents don't even know that I'm using spamassassin et al on my mail server. Also, they never have to worry about changing email addresses again, assuming the
After about a year of running this,
CloudMark's SpamNet (Score:5, Informative)
Re:CloudMark's SpamNet (Score:2)
I would bet that SpamAssassin would be useable as an Outlook module already if it weren't for the parent company being for profit.
Re:CloudMark's SpamNet (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:CloudMark's SpamNet (Score:4, Funny)
Did they really think CloudMark was going to continue to offer the service for free? You can't pay your bandwidth bills with spam (unless you are a spammer). Hey, perhaps they should offer a free, advertisement-supported spam filtering service
Re:CloudMark's SpamNet (Score:1)
Re:CloudMark's SpamNet (Score:1)
Re:CloudMark's SpamNet (Score:1)
Re:CloudMark's SpamNet (Score:5, Informative)
Personally, I'm using a combination of SpamBayes [spambayes.org] and the aforementioned cloudmark, although once my 30 free days runs out, I'll just be using spambayes, which seems much more accurate.
Re:CloudMark's SpamNet (Score:2)
The initial setup of SpamBayes was slightly more involved than Spamnet's, but once you get past that initial step, SpamBayes is a no-brainer to use.
Re:CloudMark's SpamNet (Score:2)
This program is great, you can mark new spam, and its added to their spam database to be filtered for everyone else. It auto-updates when you load outlook, and is very un-obtrusive. It simply moves spam to a 'Spam' folder in outlook, which you can clear whenever you want. Very reccomended, I like it!
Re:CloudMark's SpamNet (Score:1)
While it used to work great - and certainly a no-brainer to install and configure - its effectiveness in the past few weeks (since they announced that they were going to charge) has decreased dramatically - so much so that I am looking for another solution as SpamNet just doesn;t cut it anymore.
For those who don't know, what they have done is allow us beta testers to con tinue to use the last beta version, and are only charging new users and tho
Re:CloudMark's SpamNet (Score:2)
Of course, if the problem is due to fewer people using it, this will just make it worse.
Wish I knew... (Score:1)
I've been strongly considering trying the new version with the Bayesian filtering capabilities, but this brings to mind two issues - 1) we don
Re:Wish I knew... (Score:4, Insightful)
This in combination with the Mozilla mail client's Bayesian filter, which is easy to train, works wonderful. It would be cool to have Mozilla's Bayesian filter share its input with SpamAssassin.
Re:Common Sense v1.0 (Score:2, Insightful)
Professor Jonathan Ezor
Director, Touro Institute for Business, Law and Technology
Spam Inspector (Score:3, Informative)
Spamnet (Score:1)
http://www.cloudmark.com/products/spamnet/ [cloudmark.com]
Re:Spamnet (Score:2)
Re:Spamnet (Score:2)
Re:Spamnet (Score:1)
I did. I'm using client-side filtering.
(or get a job).
That was neither necessary nor applicable. I didn't propose to take their service without paying; I just said I wasn't interested.
Here's one (Score:5, Informative)
After training it for about a week, I don't think I've had one false positive, and *very* few missed.
Plus the added benefit of it being less of a security risk for her as well.
Re:Here's one (Score:2)
I use Mozilla's mail client with spam filtering enabled too - the problem is that it relies too heavily on the user's correct classification of all incoming messages. If you fail to correct a false positive, it will lead to more false positives. I typically get 1 false positive every other day or so, and about 50% of the time they are relatively important messages.
Re:Here's one (Score:2)
Popfile... (Score:1, Informative)
Use an ISP that has server-side spam detection (Score:3, Informative)
Spambayes (Score:1)
http://spambayes.sourceforge.net/
Anti-Spam Software for Mom? (Score:2, Informative)
Spambayes (Score:3, Informative)
Spambayes [sourceforge.net] was mentioned a few months ago in . [linuxjournal.com]
It supports Windows, and has a plugin for Outlook. Besides the plugin, there is a web interface that is accessible from any browser.
Setting it up seems a bit difficult, but after that it should be mom-friendly.
Popfile (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Popfile (Score:3, Insightful)
It's not "mom-easy" to set up, but once it's up and going, she'll have no problem.
mr.
Take a look at SpamBayes (Score:1)
I just read about this in Infoworld so I haven't had a chance to evaluate it, but they gave it rather high marks.
Spammunition. (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Spammunition. (Score:1)
Re:Spammunition. (Score:1)
I've emailed him about perhaps open-sourcing the code so that we can help him with bugs and stuff, but haven't gotten a reply.
Act as a mail relay for your Mom (Score:4, Insightful)
That way you simply administer anti-spam tools for her and yourself in a single step.
This may have the added bonus of a common family domain, and of course it extends to siblings, etc.
Before you do it, be sure you want to take on the responsibility of mail system management for your family. Frankly, since it's your mail too, it's likely less work than remotely administering several installations of client-side anti-spam tools.
Prevention is the best cure (Score:4, Informative)
1) NEVER give out your email address to someone you don't know. (This includes posting on forums and sites that "require" you to register with a valid email address.)
2) Even if you think you are giving your address to a trusted source, read that Privacy Policy. Look for something like: "we do not share user data with our associates". If the policy is hard to find or isn't there, don't trust them.
3) NEVER click the unsubscribe link at the bottom of the email.
4) For those cases where you need to sign up with a non-trusted source to get information, setup an account purely for retrieving passwords and registration confirmation.
Ignorance, as is the case with pretty much everything, is the biggest problem that is easy to solve. Don't think just because she's "Mom" she can't learn these tips. My parents and grandparents both had a really bad spam problem, and by just showing them how to avoid getting spam in the first place goes far in reducing the over-all problem. (Especially when you can get them to spread the word to their friends and co-workers.)
Re:Prevention is the best cure (Score:3, Insightful)
If you don't unsubscribe, you can't complain when you get mailed. Any legitimate companies that do mailings will never mail you after you unsubscribe. Companies don't want to mail people that don't want to be mailed and will complain. They want to mail people that will buy their products.
Re:Prevention is the best cure (Score:1)
Re:Prevention is the best cure (Score:2)
No one with any sense buys a remove list. No one wants to mail a remove list. That's just idiotic.
Re:Prevention is the best cure (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Prevention is the best cure (Score:2, Interesting)
If you ever give them the notion that you read their junk-mail, they will laugh at your naiveness and bloat you mail box with junk.
I *never* click anywhere in a message, I don't even allow html mail to get images (ads) from the net.
All sites that ask to register a password via mail end up in an overbloated yahoo account that I use just for that pourpose. Why would anyone ask for my mail if not to junk it?
After 5.5 years, my mail account still gets about 1 spam on a bad d
Re:True, perhaps...... if you live IN SOVIET RUSSI (Score:2)
Yes. Spam mailed from countries outside the US that don't care about spam or spam mailed through proxies is going to be sent regardless of whether or not you unsubscribe. Much of that spam doesn't even pretend to have an unsubscribe link. Since they already have your email address, there isn't anything worse that can happen.
But if you want to stop legitimate companies from mailing you, or companies that have (at lea
Re:Prevention is the best cure (Score:1)
Can. Will. Am.
Re:Prevention is the best cure (Score:2)
Re:Prevention is the best cure (Score:2)
In order to make the Hotmail account even usable (I've had it since waaaaaaaay before hotmail went M$), I have a safelist set up. Whe
Re:Prevention is the best cure (Score:2, Interesting)
Whenever you need to sign up for something that requires actual interactivity (i.e. reading the e-mail they send you and doing something with it), simply use the name of that site as the username on the e-mail account.
For example: I own zenarchery.com. If I signed up for a Yahoo! account, I would give them the address yahoo@zenarchery
A free account with pop3 access? (Score:1)
Re:Prevention is the best cure (Score:1)
This is VERY true. I had an email on my own domain, and as i sometimes, quite stupidly I might add, used it for registering to stuff, I got more and more spam. What did I expect, right. Anyway, I removed that email and made a new, different one, several weeks ago. Absolutely no spam on that email.
Mozilla Thunderbird (Score:2)
Spampal (Score:1)
Re:Spampal (Score:1)
pop proxy ? (Score:1)
then you can tag or trash. tagging implies playing with outlook filters.
sf repo [sourceforge.net]
also have a look at spamassasin for windows, the plug and play way [taint.org]
spamassasin windows incarnations (Score:1)
Do it yourself! (Score:2)
Apple Mail... (Score:1)
What I use (Score:2)
$1.99 / month.
Re: I use it too... but i don't pay... (Score:1)
This beta remains free AFAIK.
For people who haven't downloaded the Beta earlier: You can find it here [formosa.ch]
Happy SpamFighting!
Re: I use it too... but i don't pay... (Score:2)
I was looking for the thread in the forum pointing to the mirrors where the betas were, but I couldn't find them to put in my reply..
MailWasher (Score:1)
Re:MailWasher (Score:2)
I'm now a longtime MailWasher user and it's fantastic. What I like most about it is that it itself is a lightning-fast POP3 client, so it acts as a pre-filter of sorts....it will login to your pop account, download the headers (or the whole message if you want), use its nifty spamfighting tools, and mark spam as spam. You then click "Process Mail" and it nukes and bounces everything, leaving your Outlook inbox fresh and clean to download only the good stuff.
I originally found Mai
Use sneakemail (Score:3, Informative)
The thing that really makes it cool for me is every email you get is forwarded to your real address through sneakemail, but sneakemail puts a label on it that you enter for each address you create. So, if you start getting spam from a certain address, just got to sneakemail and delete it.
Heck, my mom doesn't even know my real address anymore.
Re:Use sneakemail (Score:2)
Re:Use sneakemail (Score:2)
As far as your real email being visible in a web archive, I don't even send email with my real address in the Reply To. I have a sneakemail address set up labeled Reply To and anyone that replies to one of my emails gets filtered through that. As far as I kno
Re:Use sneakemail (Score:2)
People are sending mail to my real address, they just don't know it.
Your phone analogy is would work if you had a different phone number that you gave to every person you knew and each of them forwarded the call to your home phone. If one of them started so
Yahoo! Mail (Score:2, Interesting)
They have a spam filtering algorithm, and it does work rather effectively. I'm not sure what they charger per month, but they do offer POP service; using Outlook won't be a problem.
I use their domain hosting service, and I very rarely get spam mail. At least 99% of it is quarantined in a folder that I might check once a month or just allow to get purged automatically.
Whitelist using Outlook 'rules' (Score:4, Informative)
Both Outlook Express and the full Outlook have a "Rules" system that let you automatically move emails around based on various criteria.
Simply set her up some rules that match on the various types of email she wants to get. In my mom's case we have a family mailing list, which I set a rule to match the subject line for. She also gets automated emails from a cooking site, and from her ISP, so I set up rules for that.
The key is each rule should simply match a type of mail she wants to keep, and have the "Stop processing rules" option checked. As soon as one of the criteria is matched, the rules stop and the mail stays in her inbox. The rule need not have any actual "action" on it, its purpose is to match and stop.
The last two rules are critical. The next to last rule should be a "Match on FROM address", and you should select EVERYONE in her address book. (And of course, set the "stop processing more rules" bit). You may have to update this rule as she adds to her address book.
The very last rule is the key. This one is only going to be processed if NONE of the others match. You simply have this rule match everything, and dump everything into a folder named "Junk Mail".
That's it. No extra software required. When I go visit her, she usually has a ton of stuff in Junk Mail, just give it a quick look to make sure there is nothing your rules are missing, and dump it for her.
P.S. If that's not geeky enough for you, I also recommend Cloudmark.
Qurb (Score:1)
SAproxy (Score:1)
Outlook Express (Score:2)
Re:Outlook Express (Score:1)
Re:Outlook Express (Score:1)
I've been pretty happy with MessageFire. (Score:2)
It's not a free service, but it's really cheap, and it's got a nice user interface, designed specifically for your mom. You do have to check for false positives, because it's not perfect, but I get close to zero spam through my personal email account now that I'm using it. I wish I could use it at work.
Eudora Pro + Spamnix (Score:1)
try Yahoo mail (Score:1)
Re:try Yahoo mail (Score:2)
But yeah, certainly better than the spam I get in my Microsoft Ho'mail account.
Mailwasher (Score:2, Informative)
Not quite an outlook integrated product, but the learning curve is easy.
One of the nice features is that the mail is checked while still on the server, so the traffic is reduced a bit.
It's got a few nice features. The latest incarnation of the freeware version is limited to one account,and does not include Hotmail access, but older versions did not have these limitations.
Outclass and Popfile (Score:2, Informative)
Outclass [vargonsoft.com] is a free Outlook plugin for Popfile. It has a nice easy interface that exposes most of the functionality of popfile. Outclass directly integrates with Popfile, instead of using it as a proxy, allowing Outclass to filter any email account that Outlook supports. That includes IMAP and Exchange accounts.
IMHO, it's a definiate must-have if you use outlook.
Two free suggestions one commercial (Score:2, Informative)
If she's using POP3 to download her mail I can heartily recommend SAProxy [bloomba.com] which encapsulates Spamassassin as a POP3 proxy with a nice Windows installer & configuration screens.
I have not used this one but have heard great things about it: spambayes [sourceforge.net], a Python based Bayeian classifier with nice plugin for Outlook 2000/XP [python.net].
Last but not least, since Mcaffee bought Deersoft you can expect that
MacOS X Mail.app (Score:2)
Now, I'm back on a PC and want a Mac again, too bad I have to save up so many pennies for one.
SpamKiller (Score:1)
Personally (Score:2)
Mom can't set it up initially, and it needs to be implemented on the server, which might rule it out in your situation depending on who
Messagefire (Score:1)
Fetches mail from your POP server, removes the spam, let's you pickup the rest. Gives you a summary of what was filtered out. No voting. No software on your PC/Mac/*ix box. No content filters. Aimed at being usable by your relatives--not just techies.
http://www.messagefire.com/ [messagefire.com], you can use the "Trial" link to test it against the first 20 messages in your inbox.
Obligatory bias notice--I'm a partner in the company.