How do Outlook 2007 junk mail filters work?

[Scott]

I used Outlook at work a few years back (Outlook 2000 I believe) and I
didn't have to deal with this there.

Now I've got Office 2007 Professional at home so I thought I'd give
Outlook a try at home as well.

I've been using Mozilla Thunderbird and I like it for the most part.

Thunderbird has an excellent junk mail filter and I find it easy to
use and configure.

I can't say the same for Outlook 2007.

Maybe I'm missing something? Maybe because the program is more
complex (and is worth several books with several hundred pages of text
describing how to use the program), I've simply not figured it out
yet?

The only option I see for marking a message as junk as to block an
individual sender.

Considering spammers rarely use the same bogus email address more than
once, I don't get how this accomplishes anything,.

How do I mark a message as spam? I don't care about blocking
addresses. That does nothing.

What kind of internal junk filter does Outlook use? Is it a Bayesian
filter like Thunderbird uses?

Actually I've yet to see Outlook block ANYTHING since I've been
running it for the past few weeks.

Thunderbird costs zero. Outlook is part of a $600.00 office suite or
$109.00 standalone.

Where are the features of Outlook 2007's spam filter hiding? I've got
to be missing something.

 

[Diane Poremsky [MVP]]

Outlook 2003 and 2007 use a predefined Bayesian based filter which gets
updated approximately once a month via office updates. Set the filter on
High (tools, options, junk) and as long as you either use exchange in cached
mode or download full message bodies, it should work. It does not support
much in the way of user configurations - no training etc - as they
discovered most users give up on training, so there is no way to tell
Outlook it's spam and add it the filter, except by blocking the address.

The blocked senders list is useless for exactly the reason you mention -
those addresses get used once. It should only be used for things like
newsletters you are having problems unsubscribing from or annoying
acquaintances. The total number of addresses on all safe and blocked lists
is approx 2000 so you don't want to fill the blocked one with useless
addresses.

 

[Scott]

Outlook 2003 and 2007 use a predefined Bayesian based filter which gets
updated approximately once a month via office updates. Set the filter on
High (tools, options, junk) and as long as you either use exchange in cached
mode or download full message bodies, it should work.

No exchange here. It's POP. Actually, it's Windows Live Mail. I'm
not brave enough to unleash it on any of my regular IMAP accounts yet.

It does not support
much in the way of user configurations - no training etc - as they
discovered most users give up on training, so there is no way to tell

That was a brilliant move on their part. So let the idiots give up and
the smart people train. The end result for the idiots would be the
same.

The training feature in Thunderbird is AWESOME and works VERY well.

This is truly sad. Oh well, I wasn't that interested in Outlook but
since it came "free" with the stuff I was interested in, I thought I'd
give it a shot.

That's pretty pathetic for such a seemingly complex and expensive
piece of software though.

 

[Diane Poremsky [MVP]]

the users of this 'seemingly complex and expensive piece of software' don't
have time to fool around with configuring the spam filter to keep it
updated. It's much better for everyone to update the filters regularly and a
lot less duplicated effort by hundreds of thousands of users.

Are you using http access to live mail or the outlook connector?

 

[squishy]

I used Outlook at work a few years back (Outlook 2000 I believe) and I
didn't have to deal with this there.

Now I've got Office 2007 Professional at home so I thought I'd give
Outlook a try at home as well.

I've been using Mozilla Thunderbird and I like it for the most part.

Thunderbird has an excellent junk mail filter and I find it easy to
use and configure.

I can't say the same for Outlook 2007.

Maybe I'm missing something? Maybe because the program is more
complex (and is worth several books with several hundred pages of text
describing how to use the program), I've simply not figured it out
yet?

The only option I see for marking a message as junk as to block an
individual sender.

Considering spammers rarely use the same bogus email address more than
once, I don't get how this accomplishes anything,.

How do I mark a message as spam? I don't care about blocking
addresses. That does nothing.

What kind of internal junk filter does Outlook use? Is it a Bayesian
filter like Thunderbird uses?

Actually I've yet to see Outlook block ANYTHING since I've been
running it for the past few weeks.

Thunderbird costs zero. Outlook is part of a $600.00 office suite or
$109.00 standalone.

Where are the features of Outlook 2007's spam filter hiding? I've got
to be missing something.

Dude - get Spamfighter. It's free for personal use, updates itself
automatically and keeps your inbox pretty darn clean.

http://www.spamfighter.com/Download_Download.asp

squishy

 

[Sue Mosher [MVP-Outlook]]

Yes, it uses Bayesian techniques, but is not "trained" by the local user. Instead, Microsoft uses the vastly larger pool of data that flows through Hotmail and MSN to generate a downloadable update for the spam filter once a month or so.

--
Sue Mosher, Outlook MVP
Author of Configuring Microsoft Outlook 2003

and Microsoft Outlook Programming - Jumpstart for
Administrators, Power Users, and Developers

 

[squishy]

She's right. You don't have to "train" Spamfighter. Unlike Microsoft
software - it just works.

You *can* choose to allow mail from senders it blocks as spam and block
emails it allows - but you don't have to.

In my 24 years as a Windows programmer, I've used both the Microsoft
offerings and 3rd party filters. And, Spamfighter is much easier and
catches more spam that Microsoft's offering does out of the box.

Comparing Microsoft's junk filter to Spamfighter is like comparing their
laughable OneCare product's antivirus capabilities to NOD32 - there's just
no contest.

Microsoft is more a "jack-of-all-trades, master-of-none" kind of shop.

Be very careful with any advice from anyone wearing Microsoft certifications
like some kind of girl/boy scout merit badge.

We call these people "paper tigers" - they talk a good game (and kiss a lot
of Microsoft ass) but they're usually not the people that get the best job
done. (Not saying that Suzie here is one of 'em - but I can certainly see
here shaking her Microsoft pom poms.)

squishy