Mailwasher works exactly the way it is supposed to work and that is extremely well. It DOES STOP Spam, without a doubt. As I stated earlier, I began using Mailwasher years ago after a flood of spam, literally hundreds of spam emails a day. Now it doesn’t stop it immediately, it can take several weeks but it DOES WORK. Back then I began with probably over 200 spams a day. I installed and began using Mailwasher and each day the numbers decreased until finally, about three weeks later I received NO SPAM and that continues to this day. I truly receive no spam mail at all. One of the reasons that it DOES WORK is that it can and does bounce spam back to the sender. Many people will claim that bouncing doesn’t work, that it just tells the sender they have hit upon an active and real email address so they will keep sending the spam. I tested MailwasherPro spam bouncing myself, just to see what kind of bounce mail a spammer would receive using Mailwasher. I used three different accounts I have used off and on over the years that I can still access and sent myself a spam test mail from each of those addresses. When they arrived in Mailwasher I marked each as spam, and those addresses automatically went to my Blocked Mail list, and bounced them back to the sender. Everyone of those three accounts received the mail back with the following:
Subject Line: Returned Mail: User Unknown. The message then says; The following addresses had permanent, fatal errors, then lists the mail account I set up to use through MailwasherPro.
So it DOES BOUNCE back. Now of course this wouldn’t bounce anywhere for those spammers that use multiple addresses or fake addresses but for those with real addresses they will get them back. For those fakes, yes, you will probably get some more from those but each time MailwasherPro picks up a mail with these same characteristics it will be marked as spam, just hit Process Mail and it is gone.
Another benefit to Mailwasher is many email providers offer their own spam blockers, which can be good but one drawback to this is they set up their own criteria so some times a legitimate mail may be marked as spam by your email provider, moved to the spam file and you will never receive it or even see it if you never use their webmail service. I have the ability to turn this service off by my provider, so that all mail I receive can now go through Mailwasher. This way I am assured that important mails will not be removed before I can choose to receive them.
Now occasionally, because of it’s aggressive filtering Mailwasher can generate a false/positive and mark a legitimate mail as spam but this is easily overridden by the user by just marking this mail as good. MailwasherPro will learn this setting and remember it for the future. In other words the user truly is in charge, not the program. Another Plus in my book.
Help and support is superb. Just click Help on the program and you have several options from which to choose; Help Program takes you to the Help File which is installed with the program. Information is precise and clear, most problems can be solved by going through the various pages in Help. Need more help? Choose FAQ, this will take you directly to their web based FAQ pages.
Firetrust is one company that quickly responds to questions from it’s users, with a personal email, not one of those automatically generated “we value your business and will respond within 48 hours” mails but a real personal email, from a real person and not two days later but within 24 hours.
Mailwasher ranks consistently higher than other spam blockers by users and professional reviewers alike. It offers both Free and Paid versions, the paid version at $39.95 and is lower priced than most other paid programs and enables use with multiple email accounts. The Recycle Bin is also only available with the paid version, as is 7 day a week tech support and no advertising banner at the top of the program. Otherwise the paid and free versions are nearly identical, program interface and set up is identical with the exception of setting up additional accounts and Recycle Bin in the paid version. For the home user, with a single email account to manage,the free version is certainly an excellent program to not only filter out spam but stop it all together. For those with multiple accounts who would want the paid version the price is certainly money well spent. Mailwasher is one of the few anti-spam products which truly works independently from the user’s email program and one of the few that works with almost all email programs and webmail too.
Finally, Mailwasher, whether the Free or Paid version, is the Top of the Line for controlling spam and stopping it all together. It DOES work and works easily and well. I have recommended it countless times and have seen it work exactly as advertised each and every time. I give this program 5 stars straight down the line and consider it the best free and paid spam blocking tool available.
To download the Free version, click here. To download the Pro version, click here.
Would you like to read more reviews? Look around Bright Hub and you’ll find reviews of numerous other leading security solutions including Norton Internet Security, Kaspersky Internet Security, ESET Smart Security, McAfee Total Protection, Blink Professional and ZoneAlarm Internet Security Suite.