Spam filter - been searching for ages

[Peter Kinross]

Back in July I posted about my need for a spam filter. I am still looking.
I am using Windows 7 64 bit, IMAP and Outlook 2003. (tried updating to Office 2007 some years ago, but my heavily integrated Access programs then needed so many more mouse clicks to accomplish anything that I reverted to 2003).
I have tried:
1. My ISP (VentraIP). However their spam filter is next to useless. It is still engaged, but does nothing.
2. Outlook 2003. But it doesn’t have a spam filter. All you can do is block a sender. Useless in this day and age.
3. Cloudmark desktopOne. Kept repeatedly missing the same spasms, even though I repeatedly marked each one as spam. Also caused Outlook to display 2 copies of every email.
4. Mailwasher.
5. SpamBayes. Totally useless. It appear that the program has not been updated since 2002.
6. SpamReader. Never learnt bad or good spam. Many times every day had to manually allow false positives and remove missed spam.
7. SpamTerrier.
I would gladly pay for a good spam filter. However, the paid versions I have looked at have a pretty steep annual licence fee PER COMPUTER! I would pay the fee if it licensed 3 computers, but not three times every year.
Help!

[HansV]

You mention MailWasher but don't provide a comment. What do you have against it? I know that at least one fellow Lounger is satisfied with it.
You don't provide a comment for Agnitum Spam Terrier either. You mentioned in July that you would try it. I assume it didn't work out?

[HansV]

Another free spam filter you can try: Cactus Spam Filter, but it mentions POP3 only, not IMAP.

[Peter Kinross]

Thanks Hans. Merry Christmas. I like the Christmas clogs.
With each one I tried, I assumed that they would work. When they didn't, I assumed an anomaly and tried another. after a few fails, I realised that this was going to be harder than I originally thought and started to keep comments on them, but I saved no comments on the first couple I tried. Although I think that one of them just didn't work with IMAP - however, my memory could have a few holes in it after 6 months.
I just had a look at 'Cactus', but it is for POP3 only. IMAP gives me a very, very simple way of sharing emails with my 3 computers. So that's not going to change.

[HansV]

MailWasher definitely should work with IMAP, according to its website:

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And the price is right too: free if you need it for only one e-mail address on a PC.
So I wonder why you dismissed it.

[Peter Kinross]

Mailwasher looks like it's fine with IMAP. But I have tried it and it didn't work. Although I didn't record why or how it didn't work, (which I now certainly regret).
The last one I tried was DesktopOne. I also tried this previously several months ago and didn't record why or how it wasn't up to par, so I gave it a second try. The second try reinforced the first time conclusion, and wasted about a month of time. So I don't really feel like giving another program a second try. However, I didn't try the paid version. It only costs $29/yr for 3 computers. So if nothing else turns up, that will be my next attempt.
In the meantime, I'm still searching.
Thanks Hans.

[John Gray]

To be quite honest, Peter, I think you are doomed to failure.

I manage spam message (on an industrial scale!) plus a small proportion of valid email messages which come into our work Exchange server, and are handled quite well by a 'front-end' called Hexamail Guard, which has a variety of rules based on the sender address or domain, subject content, message content, IP address, one or two 'blacklists', similarity to messages previously trapped in 'honeypot' mail servers, and so on. We very occasionally delete some 'real' messages, usually because the things I'm checking on are too all-encompassing (once in a blue moon a message starting "Dear Friend" is actually a 'real' message!). <oh woe> I have to check every few hours whether messages trapped in the Quarantine queue are spam, or perhaps the first occurrence of a message from someone who has not previously been sent a message from us (the whitelist), and release the good ones and delete the bad ones.

As a charity, there would be no possibility of us changing a person's email address just because s/he has received a spam email - but I suspect that this would be practical for you. The new email address would work until such time as you get on a spammer's list, and then you'd need to change it again. Repeat until exhausted...

I'll let Stuart tell you about setting up your own mail domain, in which you can have a huge number of email addresses (or at least the front part), and retire any which becomes compromised. I use something similar, in which every firm I deal with gets its own email 'front part', so if I ever get a spam email to that address then I know who gave it out and can turn it off.

As with so many things in life "there is no easy answer"...

[StuartR]

I wonder if we could help you do something about the requirement to keep Outlook 2003.

For example could you keep Outlook 2003 on just the PC that runs your Access application, and never use it to receive email, so that you could use the fairly effective SPAM filter of a more recent version of Outlook on your other PCs?

[HansV]

I suspect it's a matter of setting up Outlook 2007 or 2010 correctly - in my experience, I get fewer security prompts than in Outlook 2003 or before when I send e-mails programmatically.

[Peter Kinross]

Thanks guys, some really helpful comments.
I will give Outlook 2007 a try - leaving the rest of Office 2003. From memory, it wasn't necessarily Outlook that caused excess mouses clicks, but the rest of Office. One example, in Access I click on a button that causes Access to pass a date to Excel which formats a calendar for that month with the day highlighted. That calendar is then embedded in a Word doc that is a mail merge getting it's data from Access. Resulted in so many mouse clicks that it became a pain to use.
John, thanks for your in depth reply. I already have my own domain (lakeedge.biz) - have had it for many years. However changing my email address is not a palatable option.
Who knows, if Outlook 2007 doesn't work on its own, maybe some of the failed spam filters will work better with it.
Once again, thanks guys. What a collection of knowledge.