MicroMiser Software presents MiserMail, a new product that has the ability to eliminate up to 99% of E-mail Spam, viruses and even messages from purveyors of pornography who have surreptitiously obtained your e-mail address. This e-mail program was created around a central internal Spam filter in an integrated manner, instead of piling message rules on top of an existing e-mail program or using filters that operate independently of the e-mail client. Additionally, the author claims that the Spam filter is the main attribute of the program and was the focus of the development of MiserMail. In MiserMail, the Spam filter is incorporated into the e-mail program, in a cloaked fashion that is sound but generally out of the awareness of the end-user, except for the fact that Spam is gone from the Inbox.

Interestingly, I could find no specific requirements for use of this program, except on their Website where they indicate that it works with "all versions of Windows." I chose to check out this program on my secondary computer, which is a 550 MHz Intel Celeron with 512 MB of RAM, running Windows 2000 Professional. After I downloaded the program installation was painless. However, you have to be cautious and follow the directions in order to get it set up to be your e-mail client. You just have to configure Internet Explorer to select MiserMail as your default e-mail program. Be aware that this program does replace your existing Outlook or Outlook Express as your e-mail client but does not disable them or damage them in any other way. MiserMail is an e-mail client only; it does not provide access to Newsgroups. You will use Outlook or another program if you want to read information contained in Newsgroups. You should ask yourself if the minor (in my view) inconveniences of doing this extra work to set up this program is worth having Spam-free e-mail. For me, the answer is a clear and absolute yes!

Now don't get me wrong, using MiserMail is not totally effortless, but much of the early exertion spent on learning how to use this program will pay big dividends down the road. When MiserMail is installed, the 'Help' feature is excellent and very thorough. Once I had gotten the hang of using MiserMail, I was dealing with e-mail that was more focused and had far fewer Spam messages than it previously did. When you set up this new e-mail client, you will be able to add to the rules it uses to avoid Spam messages. You can copy your previous address book into MiserMail or you can enter individual addresses of those people with whom you correspond most frequently. MiserMail is generally recommended for small offices and most home users. MiserMail filters out many different types of advertising Spam, solicitation e-mails and pornography. It is able to do this effectively, because it uses filters that do not require much extra effort from the end-user. As far as filtering pornography, there are steps suggested to help you accomplish this goal. One is to set up a free Internet Web page that contains a box one can type in an e-mail address, which is then e-mailed to you. Once that occurs, MiserMail recognizes this fact and retrieves their original message from the Spam folder list and pops it up for you to view. 

MiserMail protects from viruses in e-mail because it does not run executable code. MiserMail identifies most viruses and encourages you to delete them. This program also disables Java code. HTML copies of plain-text messages and other suspicious content are automatically converted into special file attachments. You have the choice, if you know the sender or you are expecting the message to view the message in HTML format with a simple mouse click selection into your default browser. If there are special attachments that contain executables, then you cannot access them using MiserMail. When a message is received with a white warning box, entitled "Loading default browser with unknown content," there is a warning, which recommends that you cancel it unless you know the sender AND you were expecting this message. Remember that a file containing a virus cannot infect your computer unless it is executed by another program. MicroMiser Software suggests that if you follow this basic rule, it is highly unlikely that you would be infected with a virus, even if you do not use an E-mail virus checker.

Have you ever wondered "what can I do to organize this E-mail mess"? I certainly have. MiserMail keeps all of your e-mail (sent, received, read and unread) on the main screen and from there you can see everything easily using your scrollbar. 

MiserMail builds into the program the ability to categorize your messages, which is an effective way to separate them into groups. This is indicated by a letter in the column to the left of the Address Bar, thus making your message box more manageable.

You simply right click your mouse on a letter that connotes your e-mail message category and all of that categories' e-mail messages are sorted and displayed instantaneously on your MiserMail screen. This is a very practical feature. In addition, you can save items that you delete from your e-mail to an Old message folder, Snipped (deleted) folder or Spam message folder. One very nice feature is the ability to acquire statistics on average size of messages and number of e-mails you get, count of e-mail addresses and who e-mails you the most.

It took me less than a day to figure out this program, so the learning curve is really not very steep. After you acquaint yourself with a few unique MiserMail terms, you begin to use the program intuitively.

While there is a lot more to say about this program, than there is space available, suffice it to say that if you try this program and don't like it, you have only lost some time. If you spend time with it, you will have a great tool to fight Spam. Another important thing to remember is that you can select and set the rules so that your filtering can be very aggressive or very mild, depending on your preferences. Anyone can try MiserMail free for 30 days but if you keep using it, it costs $29.00 to register it, for use on up to 3 computers. This is money well spent, since MicroMiser Software anticipates and plans customer support for users to contact them for assistance in configuring MiserMail to maximize protection from Spam.