I love spam assassin. It easily nails 95 percent of the crap.

One of the cool benefits of SA is that you can define your own rules, and so a market in rule-trading has sprung up. Here is my gift to you...a ton of them that I use and are helpful in removing those spams that do get through. Some of these could be grouped and cleaned up, but they will work as is.

rawbody GW_NEW_NIGERIAN /Nigeria National Petroleum Corporation/i
score GW_NEW_NIGERIAN 5.00
rawbody GW_LDSERVICE /long distance/i
score GW_LDSERVICE 1.30
rawbody GW_GANGBANG /gangbang/i
score GW_GANGBANG 4.50
rawbody GW_FREEPHONE /free cellular phone/i
score GW_FREEPHONE 5.00
rawbody GW_FREEPHONE2 /free cellphone/i
score GW_FREEPHONE2 5.00
rawbody GW_1 /receive special offers/i
score GW_1 5.00
rawbody GW_2 /ZYBAN/
score GW_2 5.00
rawbody GW_3 /MySecretAdmirer/i
score GW_3 4.50
rawbody GW_4 /promotion code/i
score GW_4 5.00
rawbody GW_6 /cam-hosting/i
score GW_6 5.00
rawbody GW_7 /Bank of Nigeria/i
score GW_7 5.00
rawbody GW_8 /INVESTMENT OFFER/i
score GW_8 3.00
rawbody GW_9 /Instant Credit Check/i
score GW_9 5.00
rawbody GW_10 /no setup fee/i
score GW_10 3.00
rawbody GW_11 /click here to apply/i
score GW_11 3.00
rawbody GW_12 /FREE airline tickets/i
score GW_12 3.50
rawbody GW_13 /Suzan Kabila/i
score GW_13 3.50
rawbody GW_15 /(Amway)|(NuSkin)|(Quixtar)|(BigSmart)|(SkyBiz)|(Herbalife)/i
score GW_15 3.50
rawbody GW_16 /FREE TRIAL SUBSCRIPTION/i
score GW_16 3.00
rawbody GW_20 /INITIAL INVESTMENT/i
score GW_20 2.00
rawbody GW_22 /thisfreestuff/i
score GW_22 3.75
rawbody GW_23 /Limited Time Offer/i
score GW_23 2.00
rawbody GW_24 /free membership/i
score GW_24 2.00
rawbody GW_25 /sign up today free/i
score GW_25 2.00
rawbody GW_26 /cannot be considered Spam/i
score GW_26 3.50
rawbody GW_27 /UNION TOGOLAISE DU BANQUE/i
score GW_27 5.00
rawbody GW_28 /(submit your site.*search engines)|(Top 10 placement)/i
score GW_28 5.00
rawbody GW_30 /meet people in your local area/i
score GW_30 3.00
rawbody GW_33 /000\.000\.00 Million Dollars/i
score GW_33 3.00
rawbody GW_34 /Federal Republic of Nigeria/i
score GW_34 4.00
rawbody GW_35 /no obligation/i
score GW_35 2.50
rawbody GW_36 /legal in .* countries/i
score GW_36 1.50
rawbody GW_37 /regardless of your past/i
score GW_37 1.50
rawbody GW_38 /DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC OF CONGO/i
score GW_38 2.50
rawbody GW_40 /US\$\d+\.\d+M.*trust/i
score GW_40 2.50
rawbody GW_42 /If you don't want to recieve.*e.mails/i
score GW_42 2.50
rawbody GW_43 /internatonal drivers license/i
score GW_43 4.50
rawbody GW_44 /Bad Credit.*No Credit/i
score GW_44 4.50
rawbody GW_WHATADEAL /(great|amazing|fantasic|incredible|unbelievable
|exceptional|competitive)(offer|offers|deal|bargain|price|opportunity|rates)/i
score GW_WHATADEAL 4.00
rawbody GW_47 /xxxtreme|(extreme adult content)/i
score GW_47 5.00
rawbody GW_48 /(\.BIZ.*\.INFO)|(\.INFO.*\.BIZ)/i
score GW_48 5.00
rawbody GW_MORTGAGE /mortgage (broker|provider|lender)/i
score GW_MORTGAGE 1.50
rawbody GW_MOREPORNWORDS /(fetish|fetisch|fisting|assplay|scatplay|watersports)/i
score GW_MOREPORNWORDS 1.00
rawbody GW_CAREER /thecareernews/i
score GW_CAREER 4.50
rawbody GW_CLICKS /(preapproved|pre\-approved)/i
score GW_CLICKS 2.50
describe GW_CLICKS "They used the word preapproved"
rawbody GW_MBG /money back guarantee/i
score GW_MBG 4.50
describe GW_MBG "They promise a Money Back Guarantee"

With a little help from a magnanimous perlmonk, I was able to get SA running locally on OS X (where perl scripts hit yr ISP's POP account then SA does its dirty bidness right on yr mac!).

And, yeah, it's difficult to describe how magically delicious the service is.

My question is whether you folks can recommend an OS X mail program that can handle UNIX mail accounts (not IMAP) besides Mail.app. Non-MS is preferred, but, man, that two days using SA has already spoiled me.

The problem with these systems is the false positives. Everyone talks about how much spam they catch, but not so much about the crucial messages that you miss because they got filtered. Sure, you can save all of the spam to a file, but unless you know to paw through it all, you won't be aware that you have missed anything.