MailWasher Pro Screens Incoming Email and Filters Out Spam and Viruses
"Spam," in computer-speak, refers to Unsolicited, Commercial Email (UCE) or "Junkmail." Spam is used to hawk everything from counterfeit brand name watches and prescription drugs, to mortgages and loans. Nobody I know wants to receive junk mail, whether in their postal mailbox or computer inbox. Yet, most people who venture online with an email account will be spammed, some to the point where spam email represents 80% of their weekly incoming email. These folks are in serious need of a real solution to help reduce the level of spam that reaches their inboxes. I am going to describe a solution to your email spam problem in this post.
Before I continue with my solution I have to tell you that it is software based screening program that does not work with browser-based email systems (AOL, Yahoo, Webmail, or other proprietary email systems). You must be receiving your email via a separate stand-alone POP3 email "client," like Outlook, Outlook Express, Euroda, Thunderbird, or a similar email program. If you are using one of these stand-alone email clients the rest of this discussion applies to you. If not, you are at the mercy of your ISP or email service provider to filter out spam and viruses.
My solution to dealing with spam is to screen all incoming email and filter out anything that trips one of the filter conditions, or is otherwise identified by it's content as a phishing attempt, 419-type scam, spam or virus. The program that does this is named MailWasher Pro and I've been using it for several years, and recommend it to all of my friends and clients.
MailWasher Pro intercepts incoming POP3 email accounts (as many as you have setup in it), reads an adjustable number of lines of text, including the full incoming headers, then compares the results with internal and external blacklists and blocklists, and databases of known spam, and sources of spam, as well as known or suspected viruses. MailWasher Pro also contains a built-in Bayesian Learning Filter that you can train to recognize what you call spam and what you don't. Lastly, one of the most powerful features is the user created filters that can be customized to identify virtually any type of undesirable email and either mark it for manual deletion and blacklisting, or automatically delete it immediately. These user filters use both plain text and Regular Expressions to identify strings of text or code that give away a spam message, or virus, or exploit.
If the message contains content that matches any known conditions it is either flagged to be deleted or is automatically deleted from the email server, according to your choices when you set it up. If you are a member of SpamCop MailWasher Pro can forward spam messages directly to your reporting account. SpamCop will generate an autoreply message that contains a link that you must click on to finish the reporting process, because they require manual reports to be filed at all times. Still, this saves you the trouble of displaying the source code, then copying it and pasting it into a browser report field on SpamCop's reporting page.
I have created an entire web page detailing MailWasher Pro and how it works. I have also included a link on that page to a sample of my custom filters that are responsible for eliminating huge amounts of spam, including "image spam." It should be noted that spammer techniques are not standing still and neither are my efforts to create effective rules to counter new spam tricks.
MailWasher Pro is a commercial program that is free to try for 30 days. If you wish to continue using it you will have to pay to license it. The current registration price is $37.00, which includes Free Upgrades for Life. It also includes your first year subscription to the optional FirstAlert! members' reporting system. You can read all about this on my MailWasher Pro web page.
You can go straight to the MailWasher Pro website and download a 30 day trial, by clicking on this link:
Download Mailwasher Pro here
MailWasher Pro goes between your email server and your email client. I personally use Outlook Express as my email client and have it setup so that it never checks for email. When several emails arrive and MailWasher Pro has finished marking and/or deleting any unwanted messages, I manually check for and receive email in Outlook Express. This keeps spam, scams and viruses out of Outlook Express.
The newest version of MailWasher Pro has a Quick Reply button that launches a new message box from your default email client, with the sender's email filled in and your default account in the From field (you can switch it before sending if you have multiple accounts).
While it is true that MailWasher Pro doesn't work with browser-based email, it can receive Hotmail, if your Hotmail account allows you to use Outlook or Outlook Express. I use it with two Hotmail accounts. There is no limit to the number of POP3 accounts it can check. I currently have it set to check 24 POP3 accounts every 14 minutes, simultaneously.
The reason I picked 14 minutes is because most of my domain email servers have a 15 minute timeout after you check an account for incoming email and try to send an outgoing email or reply. This system is called POP Before SMTP, which translated means you must check for incoming email before you can send outgoing email. Most hosting accounts have a 15 minute timeout after checking for incoming email, so if you want to send a reply after 15 minutes you may have to check for incoming mail again before you can send your reply.
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