About.com Rating
The Bottom Line
MailWasher Pro is a highly competent, usable, secure and time-saving spam filtering tool. Combining multiple approaches, MailWasher Pro achieves a solid spam detection rate and protects you from viruses to some extent, too. Still, MailWasher Pro could be a little bit more comfortable by integrating with email programs better.
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Pros
- MailWasher Pro can filter spam precisely using statistics and black/white lists
- Optionally, MailWasher Pro profits from the real-time FirstAlert! database of known junk
- Supports POP and IMAP accounts as well as Hotmail, MSN and AOL
Cons
- MailWasher Pro cannot further categorize and prioritize good mail
- It would be great if mail could be viewed, hidden or grouped by status in MailWasher Pro
- MailWasher Pro does not offer POP and IMAP proxy filtering
Description
- MailWasher Pro is a junk mail filter for POP, IMAP, MSN, Hotmail and AOL email accounts.
- You can check, safely preview and delete mail right at the server with MailWasher Pro.
- MailWasher Pro uses both powerful rules-based and Bayesian filters to detect spam.
- Additionally, it can check DNS blacklists for known spammers and keep local black- and white lists.
- As a further option, MailWasher Pro checks FirstAlert!, a community-fed database of known spam.
- All spam submitted to FirstAlert! is verified so false positives are practically impossible.
- The Bayesian filter used by MailWasher Pro learns with every message and is easy to teach.
- MailWasher Pro can bounce mail found to be spam to the sender (I don't recommend this, though).
- You can submit spam to Blue Security for active deterrence easily from MailWasher Pro.
- MailWasher Pro supports Windows 9x/ME/NT/2000/3/XP/Vista.
Guide Review - MailWasher Pro 6.3 - Spam Filter
Out of the box, MailWasher Pro does not look too impressive. One or the other mail is found to be probably spam, and some — not only junk — are blacklisted.
Once you start marking mail as either spam or good mail, though, MailWasher Pro learns quickly. Soon, it is precise about its decisions and saves you lots of time. I just wish MailWasher Pro would offer views that let you see only unclassified mail, for example.
MailWasher Pro also likes to present it as an advantage that it is a separate program instead of being integrated with your email client (or offer a proxy POP/IMAP service). Indeed, you are better shielded from offensive content in MailWasher Pro than in many email clients, and MailWasher Pro even detects potential viruses. Still, having to open and use MailWasher Pro in addition to your email program is a tad inconvenient.
You can safely turn off (at least SpamCop) blacklist look-ups, by the way. They take time, and the false positives are quick to appear when it comes to newsletters. MailWasher Pro has another powerful anti-spam weapon up its sleeve, though.
The FirstAlert! network lists spam that has been submitted by other MailWasher Pro users and verified. If you don't trust the Bayesian filtering, FirstAlert! is a viable alternative that gives you the peace of mind that good mail is very unlikely to be filtered away. In my tests, the spam detection rate was not stellar (yet), though.
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