Jon Udell is right on: SpamBayes absolutely rocks. Until recently, my spam level was very low, so I didn’t depend on a spam filter. But since February, I’ve been trapped in a massive spamstorm. Nowadays, I need a filter.

I only have two criteria for a spam filter. First, of course, it’s gotta catch an overwelming majority of the spam that comes in. Duh. But secondly, and even more importantly, it should never classify “ham” (real e-mail) as spam. Not ever. (I should not have to check my “spam” folder every now and again to make sure that a letter from my stepgrandmother in Illinois didn’t end up in the spam basket.)

SpamBayes has caught nearly 700 spams for me since February, when I started using it. And in that time, it has never — not once — flagged ham as spam.

Udell sez there is an Outlook version of SpamBayes, so I guess if you’re stuck with that particular demon, you’re not entirely out of luck. I’m using SpamBayes with fetchmail and pine, the most sublime e-mail client of all time. Bliss.