Spammunition

SPAMMUNITION

FREE SPAM FILTER FOR MICROSOFT OUTLOOK

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FAQ

What is Spammunition?
Spammunition is an add-in for Outlook 2000 (and higher) that helps you fight spam. It automatically filters spam out of your inbox when you receive new mail. Spammunition is integrated into Outlook so that it's easy to use. You don't ever need to leave Outlook to use Spammunition's features.

It is currently BETA software. So you may notice bugs. I'm continually adding new features and trying to make it as stable as possible.

How does Spammunition work?
Spammunition uses a Bayesian filtering technique to analyze the incoming mail you get, both spam and legitimate mail. After the analysis, it can determine very accurately if any individual new mail you receive is spam or not. This all happens extremely quickly, and spam is automatically placed in a designated spam folder.

Is Spammunition available for any other mail clients?
No. Currently this only works in Microsoft Outlook 2000 and higher. Outlook Express is NOT supported, and probably won't ever be.

How do I install it?
Read the installation page.

How much does it cost?
Spammunition costs nothing. It's freeware. I am writing Spammunition in my free time. Spam sucks, and the goal of this is to try to put spammers out of business.

Will I get false positives with Spammunition?
Maybe. If you do, it will be an extremely small percentage. Currently I get about 1 false positive for every 1,500 emails I get. All of these false positives are corporate newsletters and such -- mail that has a spammy feel. However there is a whitelist feature that helps to alleviate this. You may also get more false positives when you just start out using Spammunition. It's a good idea to browse through your spam folder occaisionally to make sure that there aren't legitimate emails in there.

Conceptually, how does Spammunition filter spam? How does it know what is spam, and what isn't?
Pretty much the entire process is outlined in Paul Graham's article A Plan For Spam. His article inspired this project. You'll understand how things work after reading it.

In a nutshell, Spammunition filters out incoming spam by analyzing existing mail that you classify as "real" email and mail that you classify as spam. After studying all this, the program is able to accurately guess whether any new mail you receive is real mail, or spam. If it's spam, it automatically places it your spam folder. The new mail analysis happens very quickly.

Would you be willing to add features X, Y, and Z?
Sure, I'd love to if I can. I really want to add a ton of new features, and make it easier to use. Unfortunately, I'm only doing this in my spare time. So it won't be done overnight. And it may have some bugs in it, because it's currently beta software. In any case, send me an email and let me know if you have any questions, ideas, comments, etc. I do read all the email I get, and I try hard to respond to all of them. However if I don't respond, please don't be offended. I don't have much time to work on this project, and I get a LOT of email about this. You can be sure that I've acknowledged your email.