The Bottom Line
Mail Overseer is a basic spam filter that uses Bayesian analysis to classify emails in a POP account. Unfortunately, the implementation is less than ideal and leaves a lot to be desired. Mail Overseer is no longer available.
Pros
- After some training, Mail Overseer can be an efficient anti-spam tool
- Can work as a POP proxy or check mail on its own
- Mail Overseer can learn from OE folders, lets you re-classify pending messages
Cons
- Mail Overseer comes with a default spam seed that doesn't help precision
- Using Mail Overseer isn't too comfortably, speedy or easy
- Mail Overseer does support POP accounts only
Description
- Mail Overseer is a Bayesian anti-spam tool for POP email accounts.
- Works either as a POP proxy between email client and server or checks mail on its own.
- You can review and classify mail in Mail Overseer's secure (HTML-enabled) message viewer.
- The initial good/bad mail database is built from Outlook Express folders and an default spam base.
- In addition to Bayesian analysis, Mail Overseer offers black and white lists of senders.
- Mail Overseer supports Windows 9x/ME/NT/2000/3/XP.
Guide Review - Mail Overseer 1.3.2 - Spam Filter
Mail Overseer uses Bayesian statistics to spot spam, a technique known to produce very good and precise results, it works conveniently with just about any email program and particularly well with Outlook Express. So much for the good.
Unfortunately, Mail Overseer doesn't make the best of these solid basics. The interface, while allowing you to preview and re-classify mail securely, is neither pretty nor particularly functional.
The initial spam database that you can use in Mail Overseer gets you started quickly, but unless you have a lot of typical good mail archived and ready in Outlook Express to counter the statistics learned form this seed, it will naturally produce a great number of false positives initially.
It's also a pity that Mail Overseer supports POP accounts only, can't be controlled remotely and that analysis can take a bit of time.
