Mail spam filter vs. SpamSieve

Question

Level 1

9 points

Mail spam filter vs. SpamSieve

Hi,

I've started using Apple Mail App, and been "training" the spam filter with about 50 spam per day for a week. The spam filter has since caught 6 spam mails. The rest I've manually have had to mark as spam.

Will the Apple Mail App spam filter ever become effective?

Has anyone had any experience with SpamSieve, is it better?

Thanks!

MacBook Pro, Mac OS X (10.5)

Posted on Mar 12, 2008 1:20 AM

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Answer 1

robg.

Level 1

50 points

Apr 1, 2008 5:21 AM in response to halligang

I had to use a PC for a while and used Thunderbird. I was impressed and relieved that I was only getting one spam a day. I had to go back to using Mac Mail, and here we go again.. 20-50 spams a day. I don't feel I should have to pay for a filter, I paid enough for this system! Come on Mac Mail!

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Answer 2

Apr 1, 2008 1:17 PM in response to robg.

I have almost three years of SpamSieve experience and couldn't be more happier 🙂

Here's my statistics with it:

Filtered Mail
24,991 Good Messages
29,576 Spam Messages (54%)
26 Spam Messages Per Day

SpamSieve Accuracy
111 False Positives
357 False Negatives (76%)
99.1% Correct

Corpus
1,938 Good Messages
2,633 Spam Messages (58%)
263,345 Total Words

Rules
1,291 Blocklist Rules
2,207 Whitelist Rules

Showing Statistics Since
2/21/05 2:28 PM

99.1 accurate 😉

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Answer 3

Apr 1, 2008 1:32 PM in response to halligang

Spam hardly ever gets through Mail.app's filter here, though I've been using it for a couple of years.

I'd give it a month and see how it goes

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Answer 4

Apr 1, 2008 2:05 PM in response to halligang

I used Spamsieve for 18 months or so, then after Leopard, thought I would try the Mail 3 native spam filter.

I would rate it about the same. One or two a day get through with both. Pretty good....Spam not a problem these days.

Spamsieve is not difficult to set to up, but it is not completely straightforward either. Using Mail's filter is much easier, and I prefer the "junk" button to control commandS.

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Answer 5

Apr 1, 2008 2:15 PM in response to Mike Boreham

I'm really not sure about Mail's Junk Filter, but the day I disabled spamsieve for debugging another problem with mail, the 1st 5 spam msgs passed. Maybe it needs training. I don't know if it uses Bayesian filters or what?

I can only say that spamsieve works. 😉

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Answer 6

Apr 1, 2008 2:42 PM in response to Martin Marconcini

Yes, it is Bayesian and needs training.

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Answer 7

Apr 2, 2008 3:51 AM in response to Martin Marconcini

Martin Marconcini wrote:
I'm really not sure about Mail's Junk Filter, but the day I disabled spamsieve for debugging another problem with mail, the 1st 5 spam msgs passed. Maybe it needs training. I don't know if it uses Bayesian filters or what?

I can only say that spamsieve works. 😉

Spamsieve certainly works, but so does Mail's filter. Apologies for stupid question, but had you enabled Mails junk filter in the prefs when the first five got through? I found Mail's filter to work pretty well from the start.

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