SpamPal 1.591
I'd completely forgotten about this one. In fact, it wasn't until I was installing for someone at work a few days ago that I even realised it was open-source.
It's quite a simple little program that basically sits between your email client and your email. When you check your email, your email program connects to SpamPal, which in turn then downloads your email. As it downloads your mail, it checks to see if it thinks any are spam...if they are then it tags the subject line with "**SPAM**".
That's all it does.
The idea is that you set up your email software to then filter on any messages with the word "**SPAM**" in the subject - whether you trash them, move them to a specific folder, colour them red...whatever...is down to personal taste and the capabilities of your email client. Because of the way it works, it's compatible with pretty much any email client. To get the most out of it you need to obviously have a client that can filter messages by subject (which is pretty much most of them).
I have to say that it used to be quite complicated to set up, but they recently added a setup wizard that works with Outlook and Outlook Express which makes it much easier. The wizard doesn't configure a filter for you though, you still have to do it manually (would've been nice if that'd been included in the setup wizard if you ask me). If you're not using Outlook or Outlook Express, then you need to set it up manually. Basically, what you do is change the details in the account setup of your email client. You change the username to "username@mail.server" and the server to "127.0.0.1" (if you're curious as to why that address this wikipedia entry on loopback). In simple terms, this is telling your computer that your mail server is now on your computer. Instead of connecting to a mail-server like it thinks it's doing, your computer now connects to SpamPal...which then does the business of checking and tagging your emails before passing them on to your email client.
I've used this for a long time, and it's definitely one of my favourites for anti-spam. It can get a bit overzealous with it's tagging at first, so keep an eye on it and whitelist any addresses that get wrongly tagged as spam. It is getting a bit dated now though. It relies on DNSBL lists (lists kept online of known spammers) so, it can be slow at times...and it doesn't learn from it's mistakes like a bayesian filter (like the one built into Mozilla Thunderbird). If you're using Mozilla Thunderbird, you don't need this. If you're not using Thunderbird then WHY NOT!?!?! :-) Hehe, if for some reason you're stuck with another client with no built-in spam filter then this one is a good, easy to use choice.
SpamPal Homepage
It's quite a simple little program that basically sits between your email client and your email. When you check your email, your email program connects to SpamPal, which in turn then downloads your email. As it downloads your mail, it checks to see if it thinks any are spam...if they are then it tags the subject line with "**SPAM**".
That's all it does.
The idea is that you set up your email software to then filter on any messages with the word "**SPAM**" in the subject - whether you trash them, move them to a specific folder, colour them red...whatever...is down to personal taste and the capabilities of your email client. Because of the way it works, it's compatible with pretty much any email client. To get the most out of it you need to obviously have a client that can filter messages by subject (which is pretty much most of them).
I have to say that it used to be quite complicated to set up, but they recently added a setup wizard that works with Outlook and Outlook Express which makes it much easier. The wizard doesn't configure a filter for you though, you still have to do it manually (would've been nice if that'd been included in the setup wizard if you ask me). If you're not using Outlook or Outlook Express, then you need to set it up manually. Basically, what you do is change the details in the account setup of your email client. You change the username to "username@mail.server" and the server to "127.0.0.1" (if you're curious as to why that address this wikipedia entry on loopback). In simple terms, this is telling your computer that your mail server is now on your computer. Instead of connecting to a mail-server like it thinks it's doing, your computer now connects to SpamPal...which then does the business of checking and tagging your emails before passing them on to your email client.
I've used this for a long time, and it's definitely one of my favourites for anti-spam. It can get a bit overzealous with it's tagging at first, so keep an eye on it and whitelist any addresses that get wrongly tagged as spam. It is getting a bit dated now though. It relies on DNSBL lists (lists kept online of known spammers) so, it can be slow at times...and it doesn't learn from it's mistakes like a bayesian filter (like the one built into Mozilla Thunderbird). If you're using Mozilla Thunderbird, you don't need this. If you're not using Thunderbird then WHY NOT!?!?! :-) Hehe, if for some reason you're stuck with another client with no built-in spam filter then this one is a good, easy to use choice.
SpamPal Homepage
posted by Michael at
4:51 AM
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