SpamArrow 1.2 - Outlook Express Spam Filter

SpamArrow integrates SpamAssassin filtering (including adaptive Bayesian analysis) with Outlook Express so well you'd think it was built in. Unfortunately, SpamArrow only works with POP accounts, slows down mail retrieval and could profit from a bit of configurability.

When Outlook Express first came out, spam was not really a problem. But today, an email program without an effective means to tame unwanted messages is a lot like a TV set without a remote, with no way to turn it off and without schedule. Fortunately, there are many tools that implement spam filtering for and in Outlook Express — the better integrated and the simpler, the better.

SpamArrow is particularly simple and especially well integrated with Outlook Express. The junk mail detected by SpamArrow is moved to a special folder but not otherwise changed. Should a good message make it to the "SpamArrow" folder (and initially, this can happen), a click on the "Good Mail" button restores the message to your Inbox. Conveniently, this also trains the Bayesian component of SpamAssassin, the open source filtering engine used by SpamArrow, preventing all future mail that looks similar from being misjudged as spam. Of course, marking spam in your Outlook Express Inbox is just as easy.

While SpamArrow automatically filters all mail in POP accounts and while you can manually scan any local folder for spam, it does not work with IMAP account. It would also be nice, at least initially, if the filter sensitivity could be configured.