Sick of SPAM in your mailbox? This might help...

27th February 2003

Fed up downloading and deleting spam e-mails from your mailbox? Me to. This free software could be the answer. Its almost the holy grail of mailbox relief, its the best piece of freeware to come my way in a long time.

So what is it? MailWasher, currently version 1.33, is a program designed to help combat spam. Its like a cut down e-mail client and contacts your mailbox in a similar way, except in this case it DOES NOT download your e-mail, it simply checks to see what e-mail is waiting to be downloaded. Once the list of waiting e-mails has been retrieved it sets about checking up on each of the senders of your mail. If the sender is found to be a known spammer then the program bounces the e-mail back to them as if your e-mail account no longer exists. It even manages to detect a few well known virus-ridden rouses and gives you the option of deleting them from your mail server instead of downloading them.

The program is very easy to use, and although it creates a further step to climb before you retrieve your e-mail it does cut down (and sometimes removes) the need to spend time deleting and blocking spam e-mail. Once its done its job it kick starts your usual e-mail program for you to get the rest of your mail normally.

Professional spammers don't like having dead e-mail accounts in their list as it wastes time & resources for them and at the same time makes their list less valuable should they be selling it. When they receive bounced mail the trend is to remove the bounced e-mail address from their list thus preventing you being sent more spam from that source. This in my experience with the program has dramatically reduced the spam that I receive, indeed, MailWasher itself now has less spam to bounce as I have obviously been removed from quite a few lists.

Great free software, well worth the download (1.53mb).

Check it out at the MailWasher web site: www.mailwasher.net