antispamsniper.com

[shizuo]

I am testing out Pro version 3.0.0.9 to decide if I should purchase it or not. I now have 23 days left of my AntispamSniper Pro trial but I do not believe I am using it to it's fullest potential.

Can anyone recommend settings in AntispamSniper Pro I should activate or disable to take full advantage of the program?

Previously I have used email filtering programs that ran independently of The Bat. They worked great but I did not like to have them run all the time even while not checking my email or having to open them before I check my email then close them afterwards. This is why I would prefer to use AntispamSniper.

Thanks in advance.

[Sacles]

Hello,

I think the settings should be individual, depending on the type of spam you receive.

I use DNSBL and exclusion by country. It works very well for the spam I receive.

Example, exclusion (black rules) from Peru, Colombia, Argentina:
Header{Received} =~\.(?:pe|co|ar)\b

List of country: http://www.iana.org/domains/root/db/

[shizuo]

Thanks for the reply. There are so many more features/options in the Pro version of AntispamSniper that I have not seen in spam filters I have tried before. I want to make sure I have the right ones enabled to make best use of it.

I did change settings around a bit after installation so that I could train it for a while. Now I have set them back to see how well it does with default settings after being trained for seven days.

[vetaltm]

The plug-in provides a set of spam filtering methods, and in most cases the default settings ensure good spam protection. After the initial configuration described in manual and additional training on 100-300 messages the plug-in must classify mail with the overall error rate less than 1% (both false positives and false negatives). But if you are ready to spend some time learning the pros and cons of different approaches, it is possible to change the default settings to get better filtering quality.

There are several methods allowing deleting spam by headers. If you receive hundreds of junk messages every day, it makes sense to allow the plug-in delete more spam from server, without downloading the message body. The message headers are checked using the following methods:

1) Checking sender IP addresses via online black lists (DNSBL services). The default set of services is listed on DNSBL page in plug-in settings, and the most reliable services are selected for using. The plug-in will delete more spam by headers after selecting more DNSBL services and setting the minimum hits required for blocking a message to lower value. But selecting more DNSBL services for checking makes the filtering to work slower. Also the probability of false positives in this case will be higher, and sometimes the plug-in can block good messages. The DNSBL services often list the whole subnets containing both good and bad IPs. Thereby in general case it makes sense to block a message only if the sender IP is included in several (2 or more) DNSBL services. If you see in Filtering log that the plug-in often blocks good messages by IP, try to raise the minimum hits for IP on DNSBL page.

2) The plug-in can filter spam by black words in message subjects. This method is turned off by default because of a high probability of false positives. It makes sense to use this method only in case if you receive a lot of spam every day, and most of good messages are received from known senders. Here are more details on using this method:
http://antispamsniper.com/art-black-words.html

3) The plug-in allows using the black and white rules for evaluating the message headers and body: http://antispamsniper.com/art-rules.html
The predefined set of black rules allows blocking the messages with spam signs. It is possible to customize this set by creating additional rules for blocking the messages with specific signs in headers or content.

By default the plug-in allows restoring the messages classified as spam by header, so it is possible to get back a message blocked by header while there is a corresponding record in Filtering log.

There are additional methods, allowing classifying a message as spam or ham by attachment type, block the messages with animated GIF pictures, block the messages, which contain one or more URLs blacklisted in online URIBL services. You can find more info about all these methods in manual.