Apache SpamAssassin 3.3.0 released

Apache SpamAssassin 3.3.0 is a mature, wide-spectrum, extensible email filtering package deployed by hundreds of thousands of organizations worldwide.

Apache SpamAssassin 3.3.0 represents a major shift in how SpamAssassin rules (the actual patterns that help to identify spam) are updated. Rules are now separate from the core product and are instead downloaded using “sa-update,” SpamAssassin’s automatic update software. This method was optional with the 3.2.x series of releases and has proven to be very popular.

SpamAssassin provides a comprehensive set of features and support for methods and standards such as text based patterns, bayesian scoring, DNS based black and white lists, DKIM and SPF sender authentication, and email signature clearing houses. The software utilizes a principle of identifying multiple reasons for classifying an email as spam to improve accuracy and decrease the chance of legitimate emails being incorrectly identified as spam.

“Apache SpamAssassin is the leading Open Source email spam filtering software package that is in use by national, regional and local ISPs, email service providers, Fortune Global 500 companies, small to enterprise businesses, all levels of the education sector, governments and private individuals,” said Daryl C. W. O’Shea, Chair of the Apache SpamAssassin Project Management Committee (PMC).

“SpamAssassin is also in use at the core of many commercial offerings of premier email and spam filtering firms: with its automatic update feature, sa-update, SpamAssassin now not only saves the time of end-users, it saves the time of email administrators, further increasing the software’s ROI. We’re very proud that SpamAssassin has become the standard for extensible and effective spam filtering software.”