Spam is a big problem for email today. One of the simplest ways to fight it is using spam filters that can detect and block malicious email messages. Among the most effective anti-spam software programs is SpamAssassin. It’s an open-source email spam filter written in Perl and compatible with most systems. SpamAssassin is a customizable software that easily detects spam messages based on content-matching rules, using spam databases, text-analyzing, and Bayesian filtering. SpamAssassin can be easily extended and improved because it actually learns more about spam from the information you give it.
How Does SpamAssassin Work?
SpamAssassin can adjust its own rules according to the spam messages that you receive. In this way, the email filter is always up-to-date and tailored to your preferences. You can set Spam Assassin to block not only spam but particular email accounts, from which you don’t want to receive emails or to stop messages in a certain language, with certain file formats, etc. There’s a long list of “tests” that SpamAssassin executes when it checks your emails to look for various indications that an email is spam (like certain words used in the header or bad HTML as the body of the messages). These tests are based on spam databases from all over the internet. However, you can disable part of the tests/rules or add new by showing the program new examples of spam.