Posted on 20 Oct, 2008
We had to re-release the english version to fix up the display of foreign character sets, and update the German version from 6.2 with fixes to language stuff.
This release of MailWasher Pro is intended to be the final release for this generation as we move to rewrite MailWasher Pro from the ground up.
This is necessary because we've struggled to give customers the features they've wanted and fix bugs in a timely manner, plus as Microsoft releases new versions of Windows it's not been an easy road to release a fully compatible MailWasher with the new Windows release.
In many respects it will still be the same program you've come to know and work with every day, but 'under the hood' it will be a very different program.
Changes you'll see:
* Speed improvements
* Customization options - large fonts, icons etc
* multilingual capabilities
* Improvements to usability and spam detection
* The features you've asked for, but we've not been able to deliver - there are so many of these
* Better compatibility with future versions of Windows
* Easier to setup
As we've always promised, the new version will still be free to existing registered users.
Work has already begun, and we're making good progress - we'll release beta versions on the website from time to time which people will be able to try.
For those of you with a technical background, we're writing the backend in cross platform C++ so we'll also be able to create a version for Mac's if there's enough interest. And we're using WPF for the user interface and this allows us to do lots of nice things in Windows since it's a Microsoft technology.
Development work is not just relegated to MailWasher Pro, we're currently re-writing all our existing software with scalability, speed, cross platform and usability in mind.
Nick Bolton
I look forward to the new version. As someone who has been using this for years it's nice to see that you take our feedback and actually put it to use. MW just keeps getting better and better.
Thanks.
I have been using MailWasher for many years now and lately I have moved over to a Mac but still used MW trought Parallels to sort my email. I have told many friends about this very useful program but now I would really love to see a MAC version, I am pretty sure a lot of Mac user would go for such a program as nothing that I know of does what it does.
Thanks for the good work in making our life easier.
Gaétan
Hi there, I'll just use this reply for the other 2 above as well.
Yes, we're listening and it's been a source of frustration for us over the years to not be able to add features that people want because of the limitations of how it was originally designed - we never expected it to get so popular. So the new version will let us do all this and also work with Windows themes and users' default settings.
On the Mac version - lots of people are buying Macs now. We had a go at this a few years ago and outsourced the work and it never really turned out as we'd wished. With the new version any changes we make to a Windows version will translate easily to the Mac version.
Nick
Nick, be careful. Chances are, the reason this product has become so popular, against your expectations, is because you did NOT bloat it with all the usual junk that others did, such as skins, for instance. Would be sad if you did it now. And if it has become so popular as it is, is there really a strong reason to rewrite it from scratch? For me personally, the new version is so close to perfection that any changes are much more probable to hurt rather than improve it. The foreign character decoding bug in version 6.3 is the evidence that I'm probably right - this bug alone forced me to return to the version 5. Fix that, plus the issue when part of the text is skipped in preview panel in long email, and I would be happy. At least, it would be wise to make available old versions for the download as well. regards
Thanks for the comment. We realise MailWasher is a pretty feature complete product, but of course people always want us to add their favourite features but there are some very good reasons for rewriting MailWasher from scratch.
1. We're now using the same c++ code base for all our products. The advantage is that it's cross platform, fast and when we make updates, new features or bug fixes all our products can share in it. Also, the developers only need to know one lot of code, not several different development programs. Our first release is a rewrite of MailWasher Server and we've got a beta of this at http://firetrust.com/en/products/mailwasher-enterprise and the benefits are already evident - it easily processes 2000 emails a minute on a low spec machine and is very stable. The new MailWasher Pro uses the same code in the backend.
The current MW Pro has become very hard to maintain, its programmed in Delphi and quite a few componenets don't behave quite as Windows intended, the mail grid doesn't do everything it should and we can't take advantage of large fonts and themes just to name a few. We can't even customize the UI very much. We definitely don't want to add bloat to the new version though and the beta version we've got running is around half the size of the current version. Progress is going well so it's not as onerous as one might think for us to rewrite it since we're using the current mwpro as a blueprint. There are so many things in the new version which just make it much nicer to use such as a better mail grid which doesn't bounce around when checking mail, you can drag and drop columns, group by columns, handle thousands of emails with ease, customize the look, zoom and scale the whole program and so on.
2. Using our Delphi development version hasn't allowed us to keep up with the new releases of Windows. Getting MW to work with Vista was a real load of work and so we want it to work with Windows 7 without a hitch when it's available. This includes taking advantage of all the Windows properties using windows components (and Mac when we get to it). So for the future, it's the right way to go if we want to take advantage of all the new Windows versions and also make it easily maintainable and offer new features. We'll watch the bloat though - I've seen enough disasterous 'improvements' on some products which balloon to 100MB in download size and run really slowly. At the moment we're at 3.5MB and it runs quickly.
If you re-download version 6.3 I think you'll find the foreign character set problem has been fixed. Can you detail a bit more about the text skipping in a long email?
Thanks
Nick
Here's the old Mac version - as I mentioned, it didn't really turn out how we wanted. http://www.firetrust.com/download/beta/MailWasherPro_2.0.0_070626.pkg.sit
I love this program and have been a registered user of the MWP PC version since its inception. Recently I also now am a Mac user. I tried the Mac version (2) and is terrible and just plain unusable. I now no longer am able to use MWP. So hopefully when (if) you rewrite the Mac version I will be able to be a happy MWP user again.
Hopefully that will be really soon.
Crossplatform is the greatest of all improvements!
Please don't forget to release a LINUX-version of Mailwasher, too!!
And please include a export/import setting for the emailaccounts, blacklists, whitelists, etc, so someone can port them from one machine to the other and has not to reinsert everything manually, e.g. when reinstalling windows!!
Best regards,
Tom
Moved to Mac as well and are looking forward to a new Mac-version!
This is great news. I always liked Mailwasher Pro and see it still as most effective easy handling spam in comparison to other tools on Windows Desktops. I use Mailwasher Pro for ages now, cannot remember when first started and since than never had any stuggles with Spam again. Looking forward to test beta releases of your new version. Thanks for the nice work with you guys so far.
I am using the Mac version as there really is nothing else? I loved the program on windows so wanted the Mac version,although the old Mac version does work it will be great to get a new cross platform version we can all use. We all wait with baited breath.
I have also switched to Mac and I miss MailWasher. I will gladly buy a Mac version. Hopefully others will continue to comment and express interest in a Mac version.
Storage option of files
I would have like to have an option of where to store important Mailwasher files, such as the blacklist.
This is the background for my request:
I often experience trouble with my OS & programs setup and use a Ghost partition image to remake the OS partition from a clean and optimised setup. Some programs that do not ask me /give me the option, of where to store vitaln files.
1) I therefore have to be careful in remembering to backup these files very often.
2) And every time I have to redo my OS & programs setup, I spend time on restoring the backup files of these programs. Mailwasher is one of those programs.
It is not a big issue, but it would make my life just a little easier.
Thanks for a superb product!
(the other anti-spam programs I tried caused more trouble than they solved).
Yours truly,
Arno
(in Norway)
I installed the new Mailwasher 6.3 and as far as I can tell I did everything required for setup, but it will not check my mail. The "gas gauge bar sits at about 1/8" wide and nothing happens. When I press the Mail Program icon it loads Outlook Express which then automatically downloads the mail. How do I get Mailwasher to work properly?
I also look forward to a Mac version. I discovered Mailwasher Pro about 7 years ago when I used a PC and was VERY impressed. But when I switched to a Mac two years ago and installed the available Mac version (2.0.0), it was a real disappointment because so many functions wouldn't work. Please hurry :-)
I would like to see the next version of Mailwasher Pro have a icon on my desktop and work the same way my Recycle Bin works except it be a mailbox type icon. Mailwasher Pro could check for mail (user setup the how often it checks) and have it show a full mailbox or have the mailbox open with mail hanging out of it for example
I am now using the mac version, thanks for the link, and even though it might not be what you want, it is still heaps better than not having it at all.
Thanks
Greg
Hi Nick
Using MWP for many years now i have a question for the upcoming new release. Are there by any chance plans to release a true x64 version of the upcoming MWP. It would be nice to have one because x64 users are growing rapidly in the last few years.
Do you plan a 64-bit version of Mailwasher for use with Windows Vista 64-bit? I've been a customer since nearly day one. Kudos for a great product!
Hi George,
We will release a 64 bit version for 64 bit Vista. It's all coming along quite well, thanks for the comment.
Regards
Nick
Have tried probably 20-30 Spam progs and this is the only one to use the simplest filter of all and on the server side...is it addressed correctly. It's early yet but if it works the way it's designed DON'T FIX IT IF IT AIN'T BROKE !! I honestly can't see a thing I'd change so I will stow away a copy in case you do f*** it up. I will do my best to help spread the word about this program as long as you don't change it. Kiss Heidleberg for me. My heart is still there. Hank
I think you should make it easy to transfer the "blacklist" and "friends list" files from an older computer setup to a new installation -- so you do not have to re-enter all the details again.
Indeed, is that possible? I imagine there must be a file for each, and if so, what are the file names? Because I can copy across in DOS -- which I still prefer for some things....
Thanks.
Here comes my brainstormed wishlist for the future of mailwasher:
- Linux version (32 and 64 bit)
- Windows 64 bit version
- Crossplattform version (e.g. java, so that it could also be installed on my webserver as a webapplication)
- ability to export/import my mailwasher data (mail accounts, blacklists, whitelists, etc.)
- ability to store these datafiles on a network share, so that all workstations in a network have read and write access to those black/white/friendlists
- webserver version of mailwasher which someone can install on his apache webserver and access it via webinterface. this version then collects all my mail from all of my emailaccounts (yahoo, google, gmx, etc.), shows me all the things in the mailwasher way but via a webinterface (java?) and then lets me download the mails with just one account
great software! best regards!
A lot of great reviews. We have a major spam problem I have to try it.
I personally would love to see a portable version of this great tool. To me, the only shortcoming of the program is that it is not portable. Every time I check my email on a different system than my primary computer, I am frustrated by the fact that I can't wash my mail before downloading it. Also, if you install on multiple systems you can't carry your friends/black lists with you - each computer keeps its own (so they are never in sync with each other).
Hi MailWasher Team, I am currently using MailWasher Pro 6.3 and have never had any problems with it at all. At one stage I was getting up to 260 e-mails a day with very few of them legit so I was driven mad with SPAM. I saw the first MailWasher advertised in a computer magazine several years ago, thought about it for a couple of weeks before acting, once I installed the program I was thinking how stupid I was for not just getting the program on the computer in the first place! I also signed up for FirstAlert and SpamCop. The VERY BEST thing that I have done! MailWasher with associated FirstAlert and SpamCop, Benign have saved my computer from potential troubles on many occasions that I even have them on the laptop as well! Thank you guys for great products. The best thing is that the Team at FireTrust actually do help you if you get stuck. Can't live with my MailWasher or Benign what-so-ever!
Les
Can't wait to get my hands on a MAC version....please hurry!