SpamRepellant version 2 Beta Test

What's new in SpamRepellant version 2

Everything! Yes, that's right. SpamRepellant 2 is a complete rewrite of the original SpamRepellant version, which was written in Visual Basic 6 and therefore had some problems, such as hard to track bugs.

The most important change in SpamRepellant 2 is the introduction of "intelligent filters". The intelligent filter is based on mathematical statistics, also known as Bayesian filtering. What this means is, that you give SpamRepellant a bunch of Spam mails and a bunch of normal (non Spam mails) and it will create statistics on the basis of these mails. The next mail you'll receive will be analyzed and a SPAM probability will be calculated. If this probability is high enough (you can decide what's high enough or use the default provided by SpamRepellant) the mail is marked as as SPAM. This mean NO MORE SPAMFILTER MAINTENENCE. You train SpamRepellant while you use it.

Download

You can download the beta version of SpamRepellant 2 here (Size: 9 MB)

Requirements

SpamRepellant 2 requires Microsoft.NET version 1.1 to run. You can download it from Windows Update or here.
Please install Microsoft.NET version 1.1 prior to installing SpamRepellant 2.

Beta information

Outlook 2000 users:
We've had problems making SpamRepellant version 2 running well under Outlook 2000. Outlook 2000 simply seems to fragile to handle the load that SpamRepellant puts on it. However, we would like if those of you who have Outlook 2000 running, to give it a test and see how well it works. Please informs us about which mode you're running Outlook 2000 in. You can see this by selecting "Help" -> "About Microsoft Outlook" menu. The worst problems occur when Outlook is running in IMO (Internet Only Mode). Other modes might work better.

Outlook 2002/XP users:
No known problems at the moment

Outlook 2003 users:
Outlook 2003 comes with built in Spam filtering (called Junk Mail filtering). This filter catches most spam mails, but unfortunately you can't train this filter so that it can learn more about the type of mails that you receive. When testing SpamRepellant under Outlook 2003, please turn off Outlook 2003's Spam filtering capabilities. You can do this by selecting the "Tools" -> "Options" menu. Press the "Junk E-mail.." button and select "No Automatic Filtering".

All users:
You need either a freeware license or a commercial license to test SpamRepellant 2.

NB: When repoting and error, please consider attaching the SpamRepellant.log file, which is placed in the installation directory (default: c:\program files\Spamrepellant software\spamrepellant version 2).

The new toolbar

A new toolbar was introduced in SpamRepellant version 1.0.97. The toolbar in SpamRepellant 2 builds upon that foundation, bringing you more features at the click of a button.
From the toolbar you can:

Change SpamRepellant settings through the Options dialog
Train the SpamRepellant filters. Yes, the days of manual filter updates are gone. Now you can teach SpamRepellant new tricks by clicking the "Train SpamRepellant" button.
You can perform various manual scans such as: Scan my inbox, scan all mail folders, scan the folders I choose.
If you receive a SPAM mail and SpamRepellant doesn't catch, you can mark it as a SpamMail and the SpamRepellant statistics will be updated on the fly and the mail will be moved to a detained folder.
You can mark an innocent mail, that has been marked as a Spam mail, and thereby updating the statistics on the fly and moving the mail back to its original folder.
You can see the analysis result for any mail.
You can see the log of all recently received spam mails. This is nice if you want to get an overview of what's been caught.

The new options dialog

From the options dialog you can control all of SpamRepellant.

On the General page you can edit:

Active/Deactive SpamRepellant
Show customizeable visual notifications when a SPAM mail has been caught.
The options are:
- Pop-Up notifier
- Spam Log Window (with a new look)
- More skinable pop-ups to come in version 2.1
Remove the "New Mail icon" if all the mails you receive are spam mails. This means that if all mails received during a Send/Receive (either manual or automatic) are Spam mails, you wont see the new mail icon () in the notify tray
Turn on the Outlook 2000 Internet Mode Only bug fix (which means that SpamRepellant wont be able to detect new mails in the same as it can do under Outlook 2002/2003).
Add a shortcut to the Spam mail folder (the detained folder)
Specify your own folder where the Spam mails are moved for detention.
Specify which actions should be taken when a spam mail is received. This could be actions like:
- Detain the mail
- Delete the mail
- Bounce the mail (send it back to Spammer to pretend that you don't exist)
- Send a complaint
- etc.

On the Statistical filter page you can specify

The threshold for when a mail is a Spam mail
Settings for when to perform an automatic training of the filter

On the WhiteList filter page you can specify

Your friends. Those people that you for certain will never have is caught as sending spam mail by accident.

On the BlackList filter page you can specify

The people, spammers, countries that if they send mail to you will automatically be marked as Spam (with the option to delete these mails immediately). NB: Some of these features will first be in version 2.1
Which blacklists to use on the net. These blacklist are kept up-to-date by 3. parties. NB: Will first be in version 2.1

On the Update page (not shown in the screenshot) you can perform live updates of SpamRepellant and it's filters.

What else is new?

The new SpamRepellant version is based on a microkernel which means that most of the functionality is plugin based. This also means that 3. parties, you for instance, can create your own plugins and extend SpamRepellant in your own unique way (or sell them if you wish to make some extra money).

Examples of plug-ins that 3. parties could make:

New Filters
New Visual notifications such as a spinning windows, transperant windows showing the mails being caught.
what ever your imagination can come up with.

3. party Plugins will first be enabled in version 2.1

What about upgrades from version 1?

Version 1 Licenses gives you 1 year free update, so if your license still is valid at the release of version 2 (SpamRepellant 2) you will you will receive version 2 for free. Upgrade discounts from version 1 (for those who's licenses have expired and who hasn't renewed it) will be available.

A similar licensing scheme will be available for version 2, so you receive version 2.1, 2.2 for free given that your license still is valid (for upgrades that is). The term license has expired just means that you can't upgrade for free, it doesn't mean that you can't use the versions that you have installed. You own the versions that you have purchased and upgraded to (just to make it clear).

When will it be available?

We hope to release it during summer 2004.

Contact beta@spamrepellant.com for more information