SpamWeed 2.7 - Spam Filter

Pros

• SpamWeed finds lots of spam
• Using statistics-based (Bayesian) filters, SpamWeed is solidly precise
• SpamWeed is simple and easy to use

Cons

• SpamWeed supports POP and Hotmail accounts only
• Coming pre-trained, SpamWeed may produce false positives initially

Description

• SpamWeed filters multiple POP and MSN Hotmail email accounts for spam.
• SpamWeed works as a POP proxy server between email client and incoming mail server.
• Spam detected by SpamWeed is quarantined and automatically deleted after a certain period of time.
• Quarantined spam can be viewed and recovered easily. Recovering trains the statistics-based filter.
• SpamWeed comes pre-trained with a mail/spam corpus so it detects spam out of the box.
• Additionally, SpamWeed can use automatic and custom white and black lists and keyword filters.
• SpamWeed keeps a backup copy of its statistics database ready for recovery.
• By optionally disabling remote images in emails SpamWeed can help you avoid web bugs.
• SpamWeed supports Windows 9x/ME/NT/2000/3/XP.

Guide Review - SpamWeed 2.7 - Spam Filter

A good anti-spam tool is simple, and it gets rid of all the spam while producing no false positives. SpamWeed is a pretty good anti-spam tool. It is not particularly pretty, but simple and really easy to use. Using statistics-based filtering, SpamWeed can achieve a high detection rate.

Unlike other Bayesian filters, SpamWeed comes pre-trained. It will detect spam out of the box, but there's also the chance SpamWeed may produce false positives initially. So it still takes some training to minimize false positives.

It's a pity that SpamWeed only works with POP accounts, and it's not clear whether the system of black and white lists of senders is necessary given the adaptive nature of Bayesian filters (it does enable faster results, though).