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MailWasher
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August 31,
2004. Sometimes when I reply to a message being viewed with MailWasher the
message body is cut in half (more or less). That is, only the top half of the
message body appears in the new email message. There is some bug in the way
MailWasher hands off the message to my default email program.
August 15, 2004. Every version of MailWasher lets you double click on a message and open/view it. Every time you do this the new window is small and centered in the middle of the screen. There seems to be no way to make it open a larger window. Considering the age of MailWasher and the fact that this is a very common function, it should have been addressed by now.
There are too many dots in the version number. When you need a four level version number, it's time to take a step back.
February 3, 2004. If you have no mail it says nothing. With a broadband connection the status messages go by in a second so you can't read them. It should say in the status bar something like "No Messages on Server". Instead, it says nothing.
December 19, 2003. MailWasher no longer displays the program version in the title bar. It did in version 3.3.
The sound MailWasher makes when there is new mail changed between v3.3 and v3.4. The new sound is like a telephone ringing, I much preferred the prior sound. MailWasher does not, by default, play the New Mail Notification sound. You can however change the sound to one of your own choosing.
December 26, 2003. My biggest gripe with v3.3 still exists in version 3.4. When viewing just the first few lines of a message and asking to view the entire message, it still creates another entry in the message list. Now you have two entries in the message list for the same message, one with the top portion only, one with the entire text of the message. Quite annoying. I minimize the impact of this problem by raising the number of lines it displays by default (Tools -> Options -> Spam Throttle).
| December 8, 2003. MailWasher sometimes does not detect links embedded in email messages correctly. As show here on the right, it got confused by a line break and did not include the "9042.htm" as part of the active link. Clicking on the blue highlighted link results in a page not found error. |  |
December 3, 2003. When viewing the text of an email message, you not select it using the Ctl-A keys.
| Also while viewing the text, the buttons shown here on the right are
displayed. When you hover the mouse over the buttons, there is no pop-up
balloon help.
The rightmost button is supposed to show you the whole message (by default MailWasher only shows the first 20 lines). However, it functions inconsistently. Sometimes the current message is expanded to show the entire message. However, sometimes it creates another instance of the same message in the message list which is confusing. |
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November 30, 2003. While mail is downloading the status bar at bottom says now downloading message x of y. However, after the mail is downloaded, it does not say how many messages it just downloaded. I'm pretty sure that it used to do this.
When there is mail it now blinks its icon in system tray. MailWasher used to put up a flag indicating there was mail. The flag was better. Whenever you looked at it, it was there. The problem with the blinking is two fold. Its annoying for one, and you may glance at it quickly when the icon is normal and not realize its blinking.
To activate MailWasher from the system tray you have to either double click on it or right click on it and select "Restore". Considering it is designed to run all the time and monitor your email every few minutes, I would prefer a single click activation.
While testing MailWasher with an AOL account, it showed more email messages than the AOL software did. That is, MailWasher showed 8 AOL email messages, then logging on to AOL using the AOL software, it showed only a single email message. The AOL messages that MailWasher showed had been moved earlier to the AOL File Cabinet. I don't know if this is an issue for MailWasher or AOL. The AOL software was version 8.
The filtering rules don't have an option for "starts with". For example, you can test whether the subject of a message contains the word "Viagra" anywhere, but you can not test if it starts with the word. This is an issue for me because an email server program that I use modifies the subjects of messages it thinks is spam. It flags these messages by putting something special at the start of the subject. With MailWasher I can only test if the special spam indicator characters are anywhere in the subject, I can' test if they are at the start of the subject.
October 22, 2003. I tried the trial version of Firetrust Mail Washer Pro version 3.2. The computer previously had the free version of MailWasher v2 on it, but I uninstalled this and rebooted before installing MailWasher Pro 3.2. Despite this, the Pro version picked up all the configuration and account information from the free version. It should ask before picking up prior settings. |
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February 19, 2004. I upgraded a computer from version 1 to the free edition of version 2 and there were only instructions on doing a new install, no instructions about upgrading. The big question with any software upgrade is whether or not to un-install the old version before installing the new one. MailWasher provided no help here. I opted to install version 2 into a different directory than version 1 (it defaulted to using the same directory) and seem to be able to run either v1 or v2. The install of v2 picked up the preferences that had been set for version 1.
There is a bug in version 1.33 that did not exist in version 1.32 regarding starting MailWasher maximized. At least on machines running Windows 2000 SP3, the program opens mostly maximized, but not fully maximized. There is a small space at the top of the screen. Version 1.32 would open maximized assuming that the application window was maximized the last time MailWasher was shut down. Version 1.33 can show a maximized window, but you have to resize the initial window and then maximize it.
Version 1.32 November 2002. There is no way to download an attachment while leaving the message on the server.
Although MailWasher can handle multiple POP3 email accounts, it is missing one feature. If you get mail for account1, then get mail for account2, there is no way to have the program display all the mail for account2 only. You will instead see messages from both account1 and account2. MailWasher can show you which account each message is from, but on an 800x600 display I have opted not to display this field.
You can't shut down MailWasher by right clicking on its icon in the system tray. Instead you have to restore the application window first. This is true in v1.33 also.
Although it is a violation of the theme of this web site to say this, MailWasher is an excellent anti-spam program and I highly recommend it.
See my Norton AntiVirus 2003 gripes for an issue with MailWasher version 1 and NAV 2003.
The free version of MailWasher v1 allowed for multiple email accounts. The free edition of MailWasher v2 only supports a single email account. I have used both and found very little difference between v1 and v2.
MailWasher Pro is supported at mailwasher@firetrust.com.
| Page last updated: August 31, 2004 |
