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The Bottom Line

Spamato filters POP and IMAP accounts for spam with the potential for high precision and plug-ins that make it easy to use in Outlook and Mozilla Thunderbird. Unfortunately, Spamato can be a bit overwhelming with its multitude of options and little help.

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Pros

• Spamato filters spam precisely using multiple strategies
• Plugs into Outlook and Mozilla Thunderbird, but also works as a proxy with other email programs

• You can tweak, extend and configure Spamato to your liking

Cons

• Spamato could be easier to install and configure for email programs into which it does not plug
• The avalanche of options, statistics, tweaks and numbers is a bit overwhelming
• Correcting Spamato's decisions is a tedious process via the web interface

Description

• Spamato filters POP and IMAP accounts as a proxy service for any email program.
• Additionally, it plugs into Outlook and Mozilla Thunderbird for easier configuration and operation.
• Spamato combines a local Bayesian filter with community filters looking for message characteristics and bad links.
• Further rules-based filters look for spam filtering done by ISPs, for example, or use black and white lists.
• If not used as a plug-in, Spamato is controlled, remotely if desired, via a web interface.
• With IMAP accounts, Spamato moves junk to a special folder, which together with the Inbox can be used for training, too.
• Spamato supports Windows 2000/XP/Vista, Mac OS X and Linux.

Guide Review - Spamato 0.99 - Free Spam Filter

Spamato is a good, precise and capable spam filter.

This is good because it means you'll see little junk mail in your Inbox, of course, but it is also good because you'll see the Spamato interface only rarely.

Now, Spamato looks pretty and professional, mind you. Its web interface, on which you have to rely if you use it as a proxy service, also looks — and is — complicated, though. That has its merits: countless options let you tweak and statistics track Spamato spam filtering performance. Eager to find out what the various numbers mean and do, you'll learn a lot about how spam filters can work.

The less technically inclined may be intimidated, both by the interface and how relatively trick it is to set up your email client so it speaks with Spamato. This is a pity because they miss out on all the Bayesian, rules-based and community filtering of which Spamato is expertly capable.

Users of Outlook, Mozilla Thunderbird and Mozilla Seamonkey can take it easier. Spamato plugs into these programs nicely, which helps with setup and makes correcting Spamato's decisions (which, in the beginning, will be necessary) easy. In the web interface, you have to click each message and wait for a screen to load.

Technically, Spamato knows to excel. Its proxy can be used with both POP and IMAP accounts. The mapping of ports to servers is a bit cumbersome, but with IMAP, you can re-classify messages by dragging them to the appropriate folder.

Spamato combines various community filters for message characteristics and links found in emails with Bayesian and classic rules-based filtering. In tandem, these filters can be highly accurate. Oddly, though Spamato offers multiple "decision makers", I could not weigh the individual filters in the way I might have liked.

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