Slashdot Mirror

Yeah, this is what's keeping me off Thunderbird. I am still using Outlook, but with the cool extension Outclass which is an Outlook front-end for POPFile. It works really well. I know I could use POPFile's web interface, but it's so much nicer when it's integrated into the mail app. If Thunderbird can use Bayes for spam, open it up for other uses!

I have installed Outclass, an Outlook plugin for running the outlook mail through POPFile. It comes with a nice "Safe View" button that displays the entire email in notepad, allowing me to do whatever I want with it without fear of triggering a spammer's web bug (or a cow-orkers stupid dancing signature line.)

For what it's worth, for me POPFile is down to about one misclassified email a month, either way. It's a very, very smart filter.

I used to use that successfully too. The only problem was that Outlook has no way to supress the "new mail notification" icon in the task bar for filtered messages. I got tired of being told I have new spam every ten minutes.

I switched to PopFile, for which there is an Outlook plugin called Outclass. This has worked more ore less as effectively as SpamBayes, but it has one important advantage. It disables Outlook's notification icon in the tray and generates its own.

Peace at last.

I am using this combination with an Exchange server. It also works with POP.

Outclass is a nice plugin for outlook, which features toolbar control of popfile, so you won't have to use it as a proxy server. It also makes reclassifying messages quite alot easier... :)

I use Outclass, an extension to PopFile, with Outlook and it works great with both IMAP and native Exchange (I download from both).

<rant target="_parent">Let's just blindly state opinions as they were fact without arguments to back them up, and if I assert them strongly enough, I'll get modded Insightful!</rant>

1. Spam legislation is probably a dead-end, and it is definitely against libertarian principles of less government regulation, which is something I agree with.
2. Anti-spam software is GOOD, not bad.
3. I love free anti-spam software. And it's just as easy with Windows, you insensitive clod! Spambayes, POPFile and many other free anti-spam software is either platform agnostic (i.e. based on Perl or Python) or actually has native Windows (typically Outlook) ports and plugins!
4. Spam has never hogged my bandwidth or disk usage, but that is the least of my concerns. It's frigging annoying! My penis is already large! Jeez!
5. Who doesn't have a CDR drive? What does backing up have to do with anti-spam software?

Realistically, I don't give a damn how much spam _you_ get, I care that _I_ don't get any.

You cannot automatically filter spam. Bayesian filtering works because it works on your own personal items only, and you have a method of manually removing false positives. There is nothing worse than the possibility that an ISP will filter out a real email in their spam system. That simple fact makes server side spam filtering impossible for most situations. You can filter spam into /dev/null (unacceptable), you can filter into a spam box (How many POP users would that rule out, who only have one POP box?), or you can keep it bundled in email with a flag, and expect people to update their clients, in which case you have the exact scenario you have now - the client has to do something themselves.

Until Hotmail et al starts offering bayesian filtering with a separate 'spam' mailbox, consider server side filtering worthless.

I am smart and don't get any spam. A lot of people I see in my line of work, aren't. These people are going to get something like Outclass (an Outlook plugin for POPfile), and then they are going to see the problem go away, and they're not going to lose any email in the process.

I'd rather use SpamBayes, but the Outlook plugin has an annoying bug that renders autocompleting addresses in Outlook useless.

As I wrote only late last night, using Bayesian classification with only two categories (spam and "non-spam") is somewhat short-sighted, since if properly trained, a Bayes classifier can do a much better job than ordinary mail filtering (procmail, Mozilla or Mail.app filters, you name it).

In fact, if I had to bet on the next "killer apps", mail sorting and RSS filtering based on Bayesian classification would be right at the top of my list, based solely on the actual time-saving benefits for users. And I can't see any reason for Bayesian filtering not being included in Mozilla Mail and Apple's own (revamped) Mail.app.

I have to use Outlook at work, and after setting up Outclass (which requires POPfile) with several "buckets" to classify my corporate e-mail by project and field, I'm definetly not going back. Outlook, even with extensive use of Rules Wizard and categories, simply cannot cope with the diverse kinds of project-related e-mail I swap with colleagues, and Outclass is the only thing I could find that could deal with Exchange, PST folders and multiple Bayesian "buckets" categories.

Come on, do the right thing and tell Apple and The Mozilla Project that you want configurable Bayesian filtering on their mail clients.

As I wrote only late last night, using Bayesian classification with only two categories (spam and "non-spam") is somewhat short-sighted, since if properly trained, a Bayes classifier can do a much better job than ordinary mail filtering (procmail, Mozilla or Mail.app filters, you name it).

In fact, if I had to bet on the next "killer apps", mail sorting and RSS filtering based on Bayesian classification would be right at the top of my list, based solely on the actual time-saving benefits for users. And I can't see any reason for Bayesian filtering not being included in Mozilla Mail and Apple's own (revamped) Mail.app.

I have to use Outlook at work, and after setting up Outclass (which requires POPfile) with several "buckets" to classify my corporate e-mail by project and field, I'm definetly not going back. Outlook, even with extensive use of Rules Wizard and categories, simply cannot cope with the diverse kinds of project-related e-mail I swap with colleagues, and Outclass is the only thing I could find that could deal with Exchange, PST folders and multiple Bayesian "buckets" categories.

Come on, do the right thing and tell Apple and The Mozilla Project that you want configurable Bayesian filtering on their mail clients.

In case anyone here uses Outlook (yeah, I know), I find Outclass now eliminates almost all my spam. I trained it on about 15000 messages that I'd been saving. Also, with Office XP SP1 you have the option finally of telling Outlook not to display html, so the rare ones that might slip through don't show any images anyway.

Outclass is a free Outlook plugin for Popfile. It has a nice easy interface that exposes most of the functionality of popfile. Outclass directly integrates with Popfile, instead of using it as a proxy, allowing Outclass to filter any email account that Outlook supports. That includes IMAP and Exchange accounts.

IMHO, it's a definiate must-have if you use outlook.

It's not "mom-easy" to set up, but once it's up and going, she'll have no problem.

mr.

I highly recommend Outclass! All the goodness of PopFile wrapped into an Outlook plugin. I use it as the client side filter at work, and none of our users have had a problem with it.