The Bottom Line
Pros
- SpamBrave filters junk mail with great precision after only very brief training
- Relying on a few toolbar buttons and two folders ("Spam" and "Unsure"), SpamBrave is easy to use
Cons
- SpamBrave can be a bit slow processing incoming mail
- Only POP accounts are supported by SpamBrave
Description
- SpamBrave is a spam filtering plug-in for Outlook Express.
- Using Bayesian statistics, SpamBrave moves junk mail to a special folder automatically.
- Mail SpamBrave is not sure about goes to a dedicated folder as well, ready for manual sorting.
- SpamBrave learns from mail you categorize (or re-categorize after SpamBrave has made a mistake).
- Marking mail either good or bad happens from the easy to use SpamBrave toolbar.
- SpamBrave can check public black lists, and you can have local good/bad lists of senders, too.
- The "Spam" folder can be trimmed automatically from time to time.
- SpamBrave keeps statistics about the messages in its training corpus and classification accuracy.
- SpamBrave supports Windows 98/ME/2000/3/XP and Outlook Express 5/6.
Guide Review - SpamBrave 3.0 - Outlook Express Spam Filter
You need not be brave. No, it might be the brave show that SpamBrave's buttons make on its toolbar that earned this Outlook Express add-on its name, or its intrepidity in looking at every email you receive — even the most ugly, so you don't have to.After a short period of training, SpamBrave sorts mail into three categories: good mail goes to your Inbox, junk to the "Spam" folder and what lies in between finds its way to a shy folder named "Unsure". The Bayesian statistics behind SpamBrave's analysis make its decisions pretty accurate, and when a mistake occurs, the brave toolbar buttons are easily reached to correct it. SpamBrave learns from such mistakes (it does not automatically train on mail it interprets rightly, though).
In addition to the Bayesian filter, SpamBrave can make use of public black lists as well as its own list of unwanted or approved senders. It's really a pity such a classy and useful spam filter only works with POP accounts. I'd also love to sort my mail to more categories than just two using SpamBrave.
