Friends list, Blacklist, & Filters

[jebreedingjr]

I have been using MailWasher Pro for a number of years. I am now using your latest version MailWasherPro 2010. It has many improvements over the previous version. It is obvious that you have done a lot of good work in creating this upgrade. I have a few comments that I would like to make based on my experience with both versions.

First, I love the way that you can group email by the classification such as Friends, Blacklist, and the names assigned to Filters. I also love that you can now sort by two columns. I create a lot of Filters, and have always found them to help me a lot in controlling SPAM. My first disappointment is with the Friends list. I would very much like to see an option for the Friends list to take priority over any filter or other classification of an email. Although it is true that someone can use the email address of a Friend to send SPAM I find that unusual. If your Friend uses a CNN address or other popular domain it is very likely that the domain will be used for SPAM. But the vast majority of people have unique addresses with Yahoo, Hotmail, or something similar. I would like to be able to declare these email addresses as Friends and always see them grouped with Friends. Currently I am seeing a lot of my Friends end up listed other some word that I have built a Filter for. They should at least be grouped with Friends. The word filtered is listed in the column for Status, and that is very helpful. Then I can closely examine if the email was really sent by a Friend. If the Filter has the higher priority there is a greater chance that I will miss that the email was actually sent by a friend. Please group all emails from Friends in the same list regardless of the filters that are used. The same problem is occurring with addresses that I have added to the Blacklist. The Status will show the word filtered, but it would be better if the grouping is with the Blacklist. Currently I am using both the old program and the latest version together. The old program is being used to make sure that I am not missing any Friends. A lot of my filters are set to delete an email. But I do not want that to happen if the email is on my Friends list. If the Friends list has the option for the highest priority the email should not be deleted by the Filter. I would rather delete the email manually if I determine that I do not want it. On the other hand, if the email is not from a Friend I definitely want to be able to set the Filter to delete the email.

I emphasize that I am very happy with the new tools that you have built for analyzing email for SPAM, and I will make great use of them. I am just recommending that some options that were available with the old program with regard to Friends and the Blacklist be made available as options with the new MailWasherPro 2010 version. This in no way takes away from what you have done, because most of the email that ends up being deleted do not come from addresses on the Friends list. Your new advanced program is a great help in analyzing those unwanted email. Thank you, Sunny Breeding

[stan_qaz]

Firetrust has added a way for you to do that, if you look at the filters you can add a "spam tool rule" and set it to friends list. Putting this filter first will override any other filters.

[rusticdog]

Yeah we need to try and bring more focus to that option, maybe we do add it back as a check box like the old version....but you can click the small drop down beside "Add Rule" >> then you'll see the "Spam Tool Rule" Stan mentions.

Glad you like the program so far too

[jebreedingjr]

Thanks for the recommendation. I had not understood that I could create a "Spam Tool Rule" for the Friends List and the Blacklist. I did create the rules as recommended, and a Friends email address now shows up under the Friends List even though a word that I built a Filter for to delete the message was included in the message. The filter did not cause the email to be deleted. However, the Status column now lists the email as Friends List. If there were a check box with the Filter to not delete an email on the Friends List, the Filter could still be used and would be properly shown by name in the Status column. I believe that could be useful for checking for SPAM. It is something to consider. Thanks, Sunny Breeding

[rusticdog]

Thanks for the recommendation. I had not understood that I could create a "Spam Tool Rule" for the Friends List and the Blacklist. I did create the rules as recommended, and a Friends email address now shows up under the Friends List even though a word that I built a Filter for to delete the message was included in the message. The filter did not cause the email to be deleted. However, the Status column now lists the email as Friends List. If there were a check box with the Filter to not delete an email on the Friends List, the Filter could still be used and would be properly shown by name in the Status column. I believe that could be useful for checking for SPAM. It is something to consider. Thanks, Sunny Breeding

It's all done by weighting http://forum.firetrust.com/viewtopic.php?f=50&t=7214

For example, if you had your Friends List set to apply a higher weight of 150, and the Filter to mark the emails at -100....this would mean the email would be marked by the filter in the Status, but very likley not for delete as the Friends List weight is too much for the Filter to mark the email. However the Learning is involved too, so if that thinks the email is spam as well, the email would then quite likley get marked for delete.

Applying the higher weight to the Friends List also means spoofed emails might come in as good.....

[stan_qaz]

Any word on when the improved friends list might get worked on? http://www.firetrust.com/en/products/ma ... e-spoofing

If folks want to give the friends list more power it might be something that would offset the danger of spoofed messages enough to make it reasonably safe.

[rusticdog]

Any word on when the improved friends list might get worked on? http://www.firetrust.com/en/products/ma ... e-spoofing

If folks want to give the friends list more power it might be something that would offset the danger of spoofed messages enough to make it reasonably safe.

No, though we've still got some stability-usability issues, spam reporting, stats to get done first