MailWasher Pro
A Software Review
by Sharon Rump
Member of the Sarasota Personal Computer Users Group, Inc.
Today there is so much concern about viruses that are spread through email that people are afraid to open email after it has been downloaded to their system. It isn't enough to know who an email is from today since there is so much mail generated and sent out from a system that might contain your email address and show mail coming from you. MailWasher is a program that I have been using for quite a while. There is a free version that is available for download from the internet that does a very good job of letting you see mail sent to you while it is still on your mail server. It has been a simple, easy to use program that did a good job.
As with a lot of the free programs available on the Internet, Firetrust Limited has a version that is fully featured and is called MailWasher Pro. This version has a multitude of extra features. Since installing it, I wouldn't want to read my email any other way.
When the program is initially installed, a wizard prompts you to set up the program. You can manually enter the information about each of your email accounts or you can use the import feature to automatically enter the setup from your existing email accounts. The program can work with either a dialup connection, DSL or cable. You must set your email program to not automatically check for email so that MailWasher Pro can do its job first.
The first time the program is used to check your email you must enter the password for the account. You can have it stored/saved so that you do not have to do this each time you want to use it.
After this information is entered you can simply click on the "Check Mail" button and the program will go to your mail servers and scan the mail that is there. You will see a listing of the email in the top window giving the size, who it is from, the subject, when it was sent and the account that the mail was sent to. There will be a one line listing for each email. There is an option to simply delete the mail or you can choose to bounce it which will send it back to the server that originated it. This can be an excellent feature so that spammers will think that you have an invalid email address and remove you from their list.
MailWasher Pro has a learning feature that will remember who sent a message and if it was one that you wanted or one that contained spam or some other undesirable information that you don't want. After a period of receiving a few messages from the same sender, the program will be able to mark the email for deletion before you even look at it. Of course, if it is something that you really want, you can unmark it and it will not be deleted.
In addition to learning, you can look at emails as they come in and choose to add them to a "friends" list so that they will be color coded and you will be able to more easily identify your good email. There is also a BlackList which will allow you to set email from certain people to automatically be marked for deletion.
Filters can be set up to check emails for certain criteria that you choose and if found, the email can automatically be marked in the manner that you set up the filter. There is also a spam filter that will check with known databases on the Internet and if the mail matches criteria that is found there, the email will be marked as spam. You can have your filtered email color coded also so that it is more easily identified.
When you select one of the emails in the top window, there is a preview pane underneath it that will allow you to see a portion of the email automatically. If you choose the preview pane you can have the entire email shown. There is also a feature called Quick Reply which will allow you to reply to the message without having to download it to your system. This program should go a long way to helping to keep your system free from viruses.
MailWasher Pro supports all POP3, Hotmail, MSN, AOL/Netscape, and IMAP accounts. MailWasher Pro also supports SSL (Secure Sockets Layer) authentication. All features might not be enabled on all servers. For example, AOL will not allow you to bounce email but you can delete it before you view it on their server. You can set up the program to automatically check for email at a chosen interval.
MailWasher Pro can be found at: www.firetrust.com The cost for the Pro version is $37.00 and is quite a bargain at that price. We have made arrangements for our user group to get a special discount of $29.95 if you use the special code of GTUGAD. This offer is good until the end of June 2004. We also have been given two certificates for a free program that will be in the drawing at the June meeting. You can download a 30-day evaluation copy to check out all of the wonderful features for yourself. It is a program that can be easily navigated by even the beginning PC user, but is a must for all levels of computing.
The program will run on Windows 95, 98, NT 4, ME, 2000 or XP. The file size that you will download is 2.6 MB. :
Copyright 2004. This article is from the June 2004 issue of the Sarasota PC Monitor, the official monthly publication of the Sarasota Personal Computer Users Group, Inc., P.O. Box 15889, Sarasota, FL 34277-1889. Permission to reprint is granted only to other non-profit computer user groups, provided proper credit is given to the author and our publication. We would appreciate receiving a copy of the publication the reprint appears in, please send to above address, Attn: Editor. For further information about our group, email: admin@spcug.org/ Web: http://www.spcug.org/
The Sarasota Personal Computer Users Group, Inc. has 1,100+ members and was established in 1982. We are members of the Assoc. of PC User Groups (APCUG), the Florida Assoc. of PC Users Groups, Inc., and we are members of the America Online Ambassador Program.
See http://www.spcug.org for all reviews from the Sarasota PC Monitor, go to the Newsletter Section.