Comments for Does spam blocking prevent spam from reaching my machine?

Comment from Ivan Tadej on 2005-12-28

2005-12-28T21:07:17Z

Oh well, I will mention this program also here (beside the one in/under the "Why shouldn't I use the "Report Spam" or "Junk" button?": http://ask-leo.com/why_shouldnt_i_use_the_report_spam_or_junk_button.html article), since it's a related topic and I have all the text already written ...

I recently discovered an only 81 KB in-size FREE anti-spam program from Keir software called K9; see here: http://www.keir.net/k9.html. In short, K9 is an anti-spam application that "sits" between the remote e-mail servers and a local e-mail client (for instance Outlook, Thunderbird etc.); so it's not the type that only checks the servers for spam (however, it can also do that), but "ignores" the e-mail client. And well, it's also available in the "non-setup" form (the form of programs I prefer), i.e. a .zip archive, and no installation procedure required. Yeah, I know that this might sound strange, but that was the main reason for trying it in the first place.

best regards,
Ivan Tadej, Slovenija, Europe
http://www.tadej-ivan.tk

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A comment on: Does spam blocking prevent spam from reaching my machine?

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Comment from Leo on 2005-12-19

2005-12-20T04:41:45Z

Yes, for those that have the ability to control their own mail server, or for those ISP's that have the option, spamassassin is great. I have it myself, as do most of my clients. It's not perfect, but it's very good.

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A comment on: Does spam blocking prevent spam from reaching my machine?

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Comment from Rick on 2005-12-19

2005-12-20T03:59:44Z

Ever hear of SpamAssassin? I didn't until about 6 weeks ago. SpamAssassin is included in the package I have with my web host. That's how I learned about it. Here is a list of what [little] I know about it (maybe you'd like to start a thread about it?):
It is an "Apache" open source project that is dedicated to thwarting spam delivery.
It (in the form I use and maybe in all cases) operates on the server end.
There are commercial programs available that employ its inner workings (I don’t know a thing about them).
It intercepts all email, evaluates it using a variety of “rules” and ‘decides’ if the email in question is “Ham” or “Spam”.
If it finds the email NOT to be Spam, it sends it on to your inbox unaltered. If the rules indicate that it IS spam, SpamAssassin changes the subject of the message (which is optional and configurable). It also adds text to the beginning of the message indicating that SpamAssassin has found that the email is likely Spam, what its “Spam score” is and how it (SpamAssassin) arrived at that score.
As I said, you can configure what changes it makes to the subject line, but you can also decide what score is given for the individual rules, what score is indicated to be Spam and what action you’d like SA to take regarding the Spam. In addition to the options listed above, you can have the Spam sent to another mailbox or even deleted before sending it on.
All of this is much easier than I’ve been able to describe here, but I’ll tell you this for nothing: It has worked beautifully [and perfectly] for me. I still have Norton set up to check email for objectionable key words etc., but so far it hasn’t had to do any work since I started using SA.
If you’re (or anyone else is) interested, I’ll post a description of how I tested and configured it for my purposes.
BTW- I’ll be signing up for your newsletter, so if you decide to create a thread about this, and it is mentioned there, I’ll follow the link(s) there.

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A comment on: Does spam blocking prevent spam from reaching my machine?

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