Life without spam - it gets lonely

After finishing the latest update to the SpamButcher spam filter software, my inbox has gotten very quiet. Almost too quiet.

SpamButcher's kill rate has varied between about 94% and 99% over time.

With about 500 junk e-mail advertisements targeted at me daily, this still resulted in from about 4 to up to 20 of them getting through. I'd almost always have the "new e-mail" indicator on. Usually there was at least one unwanted message waiting for me.

This latest update had brought it up to about 99.8% - at least for the last day or so. Actually this has been the result of a few major updates, and a bunch of minor updates in an effort to get every last one of those buggers. It looks to be a success - outperforming any of the other antispam tools I've tested.

Out of about 500 spam messages sent to me today - only one got through. In reality - I don't expect this to keep up (ok - there were a few more due to timing issues, but the filter only actually missed one that it, "saw").

When we do major filter updates - we try to eliminate all major spam campaigns currently active. When the spammers change tactics, there will be more spam that gets through.

In the meantime, I do feel just a bit lonely. On the plus side, when the e-mail indicator comes on, it's frequently news of new sales.

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