For most of us, changing our primary
email address to get rid of spam is not
really an option. This is because our email
addresses are known and used by many of
our contacts and may also be printed on
business cards and other material. We certainly
don't move to a different residence because
of some junk mail in our letter boxes. Luckily,
there are some very effective ways to combat
spam and one such was is using a Spam filtering
tool.
The particular tool that I am referring
to is called MailWasher. It is a tool that
I cannot do without. I've been using it
for about 2 years now and my running totals
shows that 72% of emails received are automatically
deleted by Mailwasher. For more product
information on Mailwasher, please visit:
www.BSDRegister.com/products/mailwasher
Mailwasher is a piece of software that
works at the source i.e. it connects directly
to your inbox on the server and takes care
of emails there. This is very different
to using email filters in your email software
for example Outlook or Thunderbird. The
major difference is that Mailwasher wipes
out emails on the email server so that you
never have to download them. Having a filter
in Outlook would mean that the email has
to first be downloaded onto your computer
and then examined and dealt with accordingly.
For those messages spreading viruses, this
could well pose a threat.
Mailwasher is easy to setup and takes a
few minutes. There is a 30-day free trial
of the software so that you can have ample
time to decide if it is working for you.
Initially, I started setting up my own spam
filters and was having some success, but
then I stumbled upon a link on the company's
website that pointed to a link where an
avid user was offering his filters for free.
I downloaded those and installed them and
have never look back. The amount of spam
that was identified started to steadily
increase until the 72% level that it is
at today. This means that on average, 3
of every 10 eamils I receive are legitimate
and are allowed through by Mailwasher. The
rest are deleted at the source and I don't
have to spend time downloading them. This
is a big deal if you are using dialup access
to the Internet.
There are many controls within the software.
You can specify emails be deleted automatically
without your knowledge or you could have
the program mark them for deletion but let
you glance at them just in case. This is
useful initially until you get a good feel
for it. There are many other options that
fall in between these. The good thing is
that they are all on one screen.
There is a concept of a blacklist and a
whitelist. You can import all of your address
book from Outlook with a couple of clicks
and from other email programs as well. These
go into what is called a whitelist. Mailwasher
will allow all emails through that are on
the whitelist. It will mark or automatically
delete all those that are on the blacklist.
Adding or removing someone from either list
is a very simple point and click exercise.
Mailwasher also allows the setting up of
legitimate filters. These are methods of
specifying an email as legitimate. For example,
if you identify all emails coming from your
company domain name as being legitimate,
then all messages from your coworkers will
be allowed through without you having to
specify each person. This is achieved using
a wildcard setting such as "*".
This can also be used to blacklist an entire
domain such that all messages are immediately
marked for deletion or automatically deleted
depending on your settings.
MailWasher is an independent program and
does not interfere with your email software.
It sits in the system tray and does its
work diligently. In my case, it checks my
inbox every 10 minutes and does a cleanout.
I have my email software setup to only retrieve
messages when I instruct it to so that MailWasher
has the most opportunity to do it's work.
Mailwasher also has more advanced controls,
one of them being something known as "Origin
of Spam". There are servers on the
internet which list known spam addresses.
When you receive a message from one of these
addresses, it is automatically marked as
spam and deleted without your filters even
being invoked. This is a remarkable system
and comes free with MailWasher. A whopping
14% of emails that I get are identified
in this manner and automatically deleted.
MailWasher is an indispensable tool in
my email arsenal. If spam is a problem for
you, it could do likewise for you. Download
your free trial today and use it for 30
days. If you like it, you only pay $37 which
in my book is a small price to pay for so
much time saved everyday.
About the Author
Balraj Dhaliwal is an Internet Consultant
for BSD Register, a well respected and liked
domain and hosting provider because of its
no nonsense simple approach to getting things
done. Visit BSD Register at http://www.BSDRegister.com
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