Mailwasher
Encyclopedia
Mailwasher is an e-mail filtering
software for Windows
, Unix
, and Macintosh
systems that can detect and delete spam
from a user's e-mail when it is on the mail server, before being downloaded to the user's computer.
Mailwasher was developed by the New Zealand
based company Firetrust. It uses a combination of user defined filters, spam databases and Bayesian
filtering. The filter works on a small portion of each email, and then allows unwanted emails to be directly deleted from the user's POP3 inbox, without downloading them to the e-mail client
on the user's computer. This approach is intended to prevent the downloading of spam and other messages infected with malware.
There are two versions of the program. The free version can access only a single mail account and does not contain the Bayesian learning filter. The Pro version can access multiple accounts and has additional features.
E-mail filtering
Email filtering is the processing of email to organize it according to specified criteria. Most often this refers to the automatic processing of incoming messages, but the term also applies to the intervention of human intelligence in addition to anti-spam techniques, and to outgoing emails as well...
software for Windows
Microsoft Windows
Microsoft Windows is a series of operating systems produced by Microsoft.Microsoft introduced an operating environment named Windows on November 20, 1985 as an add-on to MS-DOS in response to the growing interest in graphical user interfaces . Microsoft Windows came to dominate the world's personal...
, Unix
Unix
Unix is a multitasking, multi-user computer operating system originally developed in 1969 by a group of AT&T employees at Bell Labs, including Ken Thompson, Dennis Ritchie, Brian Kernighan, Douglas McIlroy, and Joe Ossanna...
, and Macintosh
Macintosh
The Macintosh , or Mac, is a series of several lines of personal computers designed, developed, and marketed by Apple Inc. The first Macintosh was introduced by Apple's then-chairman Steve Jobs on January 24, 1984; it was the first commercially successful personal computer to feature a mouse and a...
systems that can detect and delete spam
E-mail spam
Email spam, also known as junk email or unsolicited bulk email , is a subset of spam that involves nearly identical messages sent to numerous recipients by email. Definitions of spam usually include the aspects that email is unsolicited and sent in bulk. One subset of UBE is UCE...
from a user's e-mail when it is on the mail server, before being downloaded to the user's computer.
Mailwasher was developed by the New Zealand
New Zealand
New Zealand is an island country in the south-western Pacific Ocean comprising two main landmasses and numerous smaller islands. The country is situated some east of Australia across the Tasman Sea, and roughly south of the Pacific island nations of New Caledonia, Fiji, and Tonga...
based company Firetrust. It uses a combination of user defined filters, spam databases and Bayesian
Bayesian spam filtering
Bayesian spam filtering is a statistical technique of e-mail filtering. It makes use of a naive Bayes classifier to identify spam e-mail.Bayesian classifiers work by correlating the use of tokens , with spam and non spam e-mails and then using Bayesian inference to calculate a probability that an...
filtering. The filter works on a small portion of each email, and then allows unwanted emails to be directly deleted from the user's POP3 inbox, without downloading them to the e-mail client
E-mail client
An email client, email reader, or more formally mail user agent , is a computer program used to manage a user's email.The term can refer to any system capable of accessing the user's email mailbox, regardless of it being a mail user agent, a relaying server, or a human typing on a terminal...
on the user's computer. This approach is intended to prevent the downloading of spam and other messages infected with malware.
There are two versions of the program. The free version can access only a single mail account and does not contain the Bayesian learning filter. The Pro version can access multiple accounts and has additional features.