Which option is best

[gerohl]

Which option is best to use for spam, training MW to do the work or use blacklist and/or filter?

- Gert

[stan_qaz]

It really depends on your spam, for most folks training is the best way to go as it will do the best job of sorting spam from ham with the least amount of effort by the user and no training/learning is needed to use it.

The blacklist as a primary tool is fairly weak as it is easily fooled, spammers can have their computers crank out fake addresses far faster than you can click to blacklist them too. Worse there is no reason for a spammer to re-use an address on a second spam, if you see that you have found a lazy and stupid spammer. If you use the blacklist as part of the MW weighting system as it is intended to be used you can derive quite a bit of good from it, see my posts on "I hate everyone blacklist" for a good starter set of wildcard domains to tryout. Stuffing in a few common addresses (brother-in-law, company you dealt with but are done with and the like) is tempting but it is better to filter and group them for easy review and deletion.

Also if using the blacklist you also have to be very aware that spammers are using harvested addresses on a growing proportion of spam and if you do not check very carefully you are likely to end up blacklisting good addresses that the spammer had stolen and forged onto the spam. Sorting that out can take several minutes per message and is rarely worth that amount of effort.

If you are willing to make the effort you'll find filters are the most powerful tool. They can do a decent job of dealing with mail and if you turn on grouping by status really help sort it into manageable bins. If you are willing to go beyond plain-text filters and learn a bit of regex (regular expression) syntac they become insanely powerful and you can accomplish some really great stuff. Regex isn't rocket science but it isn't obvious or easy for a beginner to learn but once you get started is is amazing stuff.

[gerohl]

Thanks Stan

I want to do it the easiest and most effective way, so I guess training will be the best option for me.

- Gert

[rusticdog]

Thanks Stan

I want to do it the easiest and most effective way, so I guess training will be the best option for me.

- Gert

Without a doubt it's the easiest I don't bother using anything else

[gerohl]

Thanks Stan

I want to do it the easiest and most effective way, so I guess training will be the best option for me.

- Gert

Without a doubt it's the easiest I don't bother using anything else

That's what I like about MW, it's an easy way for a lazy bugger like me to get job done

- Gert

[TrustFire]

A simple rules filter-set 'permitting only senders on my friends list works best for me with the training used as insurance.

[gerohl]

A simple rules filter-set 'permitting only senders on my friends list works best for me with the training used as insurance.

I didn't thought of that, it works fine and together with the training it will probabaly take care of almost everything.

- Gert