For this week’s Freeware Frenzy, I am going to take a look at MailWasher Free 5.1. This program attempts to combat the increasing problem of spam email. One of my new business e-mail accounts has been bringing in literally hundreds of spam e-mails each day and it is tedious to search through the muck to find the important messages. So today I will be putting MailWasher to the test. If it can help me out, I would be very grateful. So let’s have a look.

The key to MailWasher is that it allows you to preview all of your e-mail from the server side, so you can eliminate not only spam but potential virii before they have a chance to infect your computer. When I first opened Mailwasher, it allows me to manually configure my accounts, or automatically configure itself to my setup. So, in my ongoing effort to put all software through its paces, and to hopefully save myself a few minutes, I chose the latter. MailWasher found my existing POP3 email account from Microsoft Outlook and asked if the information I found was correct. I hit Accept. After it is ready to run, MailWasher gives you a handy guide.

So after the initial setup, and see how simple it was, you’re ready to go. I hit “Check Mail” and MailWasher loaded up the 93 messages for the day. Just like Outlook, you see the Subject, Sender, Size, Time and Date, but you also see the “Status” and have a column for Delete. Right off the bat MailWasher is helping you fight spam, with some messages already flagged for deletion, and labeled as “Origin blacklisted by SpamCop.” You simply go down the list flagging junk for deletion or adding it to either the blacklist or the friends list. I blacklisted all of my spam and set the option for those to be deleted. Once you are finished working with the mail, you can hit “Process Mail.” MailWasher will then Delete the so-flagged items, and send the messages you want on to your email program. So instead of receiving 93 trash emails to my computer, which could potentially be full of virii, I only download the 5 messages that I wanted, and should be safe.

After spending some time with MailWasher it is important to note some of the differences between the Free and Pro versions. Not only are there major differences, but they do change the program in an important way. The differences are very apparent on both the main window panes and in the Spam Tools menu. The preview pane is a Pro only feature, but you can still preview your messages by hitting Spacebar. I found this was a minor quibble, since I don’t often need to look past the subject line to know what is spam and what is not. Also in the main window, on the right, are your friends list, blacklist and filters, ready for drag and drop and convenient editing, if you had Pro. Instead of this convenience, you have to enter the Spam Tools menu to work on these things. The larger changes are the lack of Learning, Spam Origin, First Alert and SpamCop. Reporting spam to SpamCop will close the offending accounts, Origin allows you to track where your spam is coming from, FirstAlert is a spam database that will stop known spam before you even see it, and Learning allows MailWasher to “learn” what is good and bad email, to lessen your work.

But not to be a complainer, MailWasher Free still gives you some great tools. Besides the Friends and Black lists, you can set up custom e-mail filters as well as have MailWasher mark potential viruses automatically. MailWasher can also run in the tray and automatically check your email, as well as keeping a log of incoming messages and the action taken with them.

So in conclusion, MailWasher Free does not lessen the spam that you receive on its own. But because you do not have to download the messages to your system, you can prevent any harmful spam from reaching it. At this, MailWasher performs admirably. I believe it is a worthy addition to other spam fighting programs, but cannot handle the problem by itself. I recommend it along with effective anti-spam programs and spending some time to setup custom filters through your ISP and mail program.