I like Mailwasher because
it's good at detecting spam using a variety of
differernt methods, and you can say who should
be blacklisted and who you trust
as friends.
Server-based Spam
Filters
Some email spam filters that you pay your ISP
for, run on the POP3 server and act just
like a black box – they are out of your
control, they stop mail and that’s it,
you don't ever get to see it! There is the risk that important mail that
you want to read is blocked
without
you
even knowing it.
I really wanted a program that
would let me define my own filtering
rules and see
exactly what is being blocked.
Mailwasher is your Email software's best friend
Mailwasher runs on your PC independently of
your normal email software (Outlook Express,
Pegasus, Eudora, etc), and reaches out to
your mail server without downloading
the bulk of the mail. It only fetches enough
info to determine whether its spam, virus or
friendly.
This
is unlike a lot of other anti-spam solutions
that download
stuff
only to discover the spam or virus needs
to be junked anyway. Mailwasher is different
to many other anti-spam solutions because it
deletes the spam from your email server,
before your normal email software even
downloads it!
Mailwasher also retains a record of deleted
emails, so that even if you accidentally deleted
a mail yourself, you can tell it to re-send the
mail to you again. Now that's neat!
Mailwasher checks Hotmail and AOL
There is one thing that sets MailWasher
apart from many others in its class:-
Many anti-spam products have
the the ability to check POP3 and MAPI accounts
(POP3 accounts are "the norm" and are
the ones most often provided by a home user's
ISP - while MAPI accounts are usually used in
a corporate or small business environment where
there is
a central mail server in operation), BUT
unlike many other anti-spam products MailWasher
also has the ability to check Hotmail and AOL "Web
based" e-mail
accounts. This is not a feature you see a great deal of in spam filters
and for someone using these type of accounts regularly, this could well swing
your
decision toward
MailWasher Pro.
Microsoft Outlook - Just Junk Everything
There are a number of excellent email filters
that work only with Microsoft’s Outlook email
client, but the trouble with these is that the filters generally bang what it
thinks is spam into the Junk folder.
At some point you have to review the Junk folder,
but before you know it, in one day you've got
200 junk emails to
wade
through as you search for any important
emails which
the filter mistakenly classed as spam. You either miss
it in
all that crap, or you get bored and just "empty"
the Junk folder regardless!
Mailwasher
is very good at knowing what is definitely junk,
or previously blacklisted by you. It has learning
algorithms to help it get better at its job (they're
called Bayesian filters).
It colour codes
emails so
you can easily see which are from friends,
which are definitely
crap, and any that are
"Possibly Legitimate" it brings
your attention to so you
can teach Mailwasher about them.
I personally use many computers and a
variety of other email programs such as Eudora and Pegasus. I
wanted a program that would support whatever
mail software I want to use, not just Outlook.
Supports
spam blacklists
The nature
of spam is that one email is sent to many recipients.
If one person identifies
it as spam and passes it on to a blacklist
server, then other recipients of that
email will have it pre-identified as spam, or the sender is identified as
a spammer and all his emails will be so identified.
This is great
in theory but in practice, legitimate organisations
and senders can sometimes wrongly be identified
as spammers. I wanted the ability to define
which blacklists are
used.
The good news is that Mailwasher meets
these criteria really well.
- It supports
any email program because it
works directly on your mailbox – just
like the email client you use. Your mailbox can
be
POP3, AOL, IMAP or Hotmail.
-
The filtering
is extremely flexible. You can
set up a list of keywords that guarantee a mail
will be allowed through, but you can also set
complex conditions using ‘regular expressions’ which
is effectively a powerful rule language.
- You
can define exactly what blacklists to
use (if any).
Ease of Use
In operation, Mailwasher Pro is
very easy to use, and apart from specifying your
email account details when you first install
it, Mailwasher works out of the box.
After installation, a handy wizard starts which
offers the ability to automatically scan for
your existing e-mail settings (and friends lists),
or to leave you to do it manually. It does
a commendable job of importing existing e-mail
accounts
from
Microsoft Outlook and adding the
Contacts to its "friends" list.
There are
really only two
steps: Check and Process.
Check:
Mailwasher
Pro can be set to automatically startup with
Windows. It checks each of your mail accounts
every few minutes and lists all the emails. It
marks each mail item according to whether it
is friendly, blacklisted because of its origin,
contains a virus, or is a possible spam. A set
of default actions is selected for any spam mail – delete, bounce and blacklist but
you can easily change the action for an individual
mail. You may spot
an item from a friend – just press + to
mark it as such and the mail remains ready for
retrieval by your normal email program, while
all spam and viruses will get squished!
Mailwasher
Pro has a clear display of all the emails so
you can
sort them, read them and define actions as you
wish. In use
Mailwasher becomes better and better with
time as its Bayesian Filters "learn" and remember
what you tell it about what is mail and what
is spam.
Process:
It only takes
action when you select the Process Mail button.
It deletes what needs
to be deleted and leaves the rest for your mail
client. So, the good news is that spam and viruses
are deleted from your mailbox and not
downloaded to your computer!
I used to tear
my hair out with spam before Mailwasher, now
I don't even think about it ! I have been
using Mailwasher since 2003, and I
have no need or desire to change to another product.
You can try
it Free for 30 days! Mailwasher
Pro is a completely separate piece of software to
your normal email
software. There
is no need to configure it in Outlook or anything
complicated like that. You
just have Mailwasher running/checking your
email accounts for spam,
and deleting it first, THEN you hit the Receive
email button in your Outlook (or other email
client) to download the remaining good stuff.
Just get
in
the habit
of
using Mailwasher
as
your main mail program to check, review,
pre-read your mails, click any links to websites
contained in mails, and delete any spam (you
soon get used to this, and
you will actually end up preferring to use Mailwasher),
and only then do you hit the Receive button
in
Outlook.
Identify Phishing Scams
The other thing about Mailwasher is that because
its email "preview screen" shows you the raw contents
of the mail in a pure text form (rather than
the pretty graphical stuff like your email program
would do),
it exposes phishing
scam emails for what they are - helping
you to identify dangerous phishing scams.
You
get to see the REAL destination
of a link, and so you know instantly that
the actual website you would go to is in fact
not
really your Paypal, Barclays Bank,
or American Express online account, or whatever.
I consider this to be a major benefit of using
Mailwasher, and it has helped me laugh at
scammers pathetic attempts to dupe me, and prevent
the
drastic consequences of innocently logging
in to what I thought was my actual account,
when
it was not.
I thoroughly recommend giving Mailwasher
Pro a go.
Download and check it out. It
will save you heaps of time, money and hassle.
Give yourself a break from Spam!
Click
here to visit Firetrust and learn more about
MailWasher Pro
Learn more about Mailwasher Pro...... Take back control of your email inbox
Spammers and viruses are out there now sending billions of junk messages.
The average email user receives many thousands of spam messages each year.
This
means you’ll
continue to waste more and more of your precious time every year deleting this
information pollution, an epidemic that won’t stop spreading any time
soon. How can you clean up your email and unclog your inbox?
Introducing MailWasher Pro
MailWasher Pro quickly and easily helps you control spam
from polluting your email inbox. Powered by advanced technologies including
Bayesian filters, MailWasher Pro enables users
to protect their inboxes from spam and fight back against spammers.
Regain control of your inbox
MailWasher Pro provides an easy-to-use, effective anti-spam solution for consumers
and businesses. With a multitude of anti-spam tools, MailWasher Pro offers
email users an unprecedented level of email security and control.
MailWasher Pro saves you time
View your email before it gets to your computer. Blocks spam using blacklists,
custom and advanced learning filters. Fight back against spammers by reporting
spam messages to the FirstAlert! global spam database
* Delete unwanted email before you download them
* Supports POP3, IMAP, AOL, and Hotmail/MSN
* Protects unlimited email accounts
* Advanced Spam Filtering
* Learning filters learn from the spam and legitimate email you receive to
deliver you a robust and efficient approach to solving your spam problem
* Customized filters effectively work to automatically spot spam
* Friends list and Blacklist
* Add your friend’s email addresses so MailWasher Pro always recognizes
them for safe efficient delivery.
* A customizable list of blacklisted email senders and/or regular expressions
filter out potential spammer addresses and messages.
Fight Back Against Spammers with FirstAlert!
The spread of spam is reduced through the use of a global network of users
who actively report spam to a central database called FirstAlert! Spam messages
are easily and actively reported for verification as spam and then transformed
into a digital fingerprint. Users who interact with the database, do so in
real-time and any messages in the users email that correspond to identical
fingerprints in the database are eliminated.
Block Known Origins of Spam
MailWasher Pro enables you to check the origin of the email received against
DNS spam blacklist servers. MailWasher gives you control over whether to display
or hide, mark for blacklist, or automatically delete spam.
Block Known Spam
MailWasher
Pro works independently of your email inbox allowing you to view your email
for actioning before it gets to your computer. Choose to delete, report, bounce
or filter email to receive only the good email in your inbox. With a multitude
of anti-spam tools, MailWasher Pro offers email users an unprecedented level
of email security and control.
Protocol and Application Support
MailWasher Pro supports POP3, IMAP, AOL, MSN and Hotmail email protocols.
By directly supporting multiple client based applications and web-based email
clients, MailWasher Pro enables you to benefit from its advanced filtering
without forcing you to change your email behavior.
Fight back with DNS spam blacklists!
MailWasher Pro automatically determines the origin of a spam email received
against DNS spam blacklist servers and gives advanced users the ability to
be proactive in the fight against spam by report ing spammers to the proper
authorities.
So simple to use
Apart from being the most effective anit spam
software to fight spam, you’ll find MailWasher
Pro is probably the easiest anti-spam
software to use. We took the view that if we can’t
understand how to use a piece of software in under
5 minutes then it’s probably always going
to be hard to use. You want a program with a minimal
learning curve, which is easy to use and looks
attractive. MailWasher Pro works
directly with your email server, exactly like
your email program does. However, there is one
important difference. MailWasher Pro
retrieves infomation about all the email on the
server. With that information you decide what
to do with each individual email before you download
it... choose to train your learning filters, bounce
an email back to the sender to appear as if your
email address does not exist, or report spam to
the FirstAlert! database.
Second-to-none customer support
Firetrust employ staff whose full-time job is purely to help you get the best
from MailWasher Pro. We aim to answer all email from registered MailWasher
Pro users within 24 hours, every single day of the week, including public holidays.
System requirements
Windows 95, 98, ME, 2000, XP
Works with any POP3, IMAP, AOL, MSN or Hotmail email account.
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