This is such a time, especially if you would like to eradicate junk e-mail from your computer.

Our advice in this case is simple and straightforward, and it won't cost you a thing: download and install a program called POPFile.

This wonderful mail filtering program, written in Perl by John Graham-Cumming, is tremendously effective in fighting spam. (It can serve as a general-purpose mail sorter as well, but we have primarily used it to eliminate our junk e-mail.) POPFile is open source software covered by the General Public License and available for virtually every platform, and it works with most standalone e-mail clients. Immediately upon installation, POPFile seems to be as effective as the commercial e-mail filters such as SpamKiller, which is to say around 75% to 80% effective. After a week or so of "training"—during which you tell the program how to classify mail it has mis-classified—POPFile attains an accuracy level of close to 100%. We receive 400-500 e-mails per day, and more than 70% of those are spam. There are many days when POPFile scores perfectly. Spam, so much in the news lately, is for us almost a thing of the past.

POPFile works by breaking down your e-mail messages into individual words to sort them into different categories, or "buckets". (It uses something called a Naïve Bayes algorithm to accomplish this.) You set these buckets up yourself—you can have as many as you like, or only two, inbox and spam. You also need to configure your e-mail program to recognize them. POPFile then sorts your mail accordingly. When it makes a mistake, you correct it. And that's basically all there is to it. The program is a very fast learner—after a week or so, you should be up around 99% accuracy, which is far better than any commercial program we've seen.

There are two versions of the program available, one for Windows and one for everyone else. Both versions require you to have Perl installed on your computer. (And if you think this is too much trouble, compare it to the noxious task of deleting your junk mail day after day, week after week, ad infinitum.) The Windows version of POPFile is a simple, double-click installation, followed by the simple configuration mentioned above. We have had POPFile running on two Windows 2000 workstations for months now, with extremely happy results. We also recently installed the cross-platform version on a Mac running OS 10.2; this was somewhat less straightforward, as the version of Perl installed by default on OS X is missing a module (MIME-Base64) that POPFile needs. You will need to obtain and install this module and also have the Apple Developer Tools installed (Developer Tools should be on your OS X install CDs). You will also need to issue a few commands in Terminal to get POPFile up and running. Once you do, you'll find it's just as effective on the Mac as in Windows. (The Mac installation may seem daunting, but it's really not: this page has full, step-by-step instructions.)

If you like POPFile, as we think you will, you might want to poke around SourceForge for other great open source software. And if you don't feel comfortable with free software, then spend a little of your hard-earned cash on a tee shirt or coffee mug at the POPFile store.

It's really that easy: download POPFile, install it, eliminate spam on your computer. One major modern annoyance, solved. Now, if only technology could do as well with the world's more serious problems.

(Reviewed May 16, 2003)