ClearMyMail is an antispam system that can, with almost no effort or complex configuration, stop all unwanted email without suffering false positives.
Antispam systems come in three forms - software-based clients that live on a specific PC, server-based ones that work from inside a network, and external services such as ClearMyMail. The latter category is currently not served by many companies, but it is sure to grow.
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Deciding which one to adopt depends on the number of users being supported, the operating systems/email clients (including mobile ones) being used, and whether accounts are POP3-based, server-based, or webmail-based. Standalone users will benefit from the ClearMyMail approach; corporate users have very different needs. Small to medium businesses (SMBs) are in the middle somewhere. It all depends.
Believe it or not, there is such a thing as an antispam system that can, with almost no effort or complex configuration, stop all unwanted email without suffering false positives. It exists and it’s called ClearMyMail, and we’ve been using it without a hitch for two months.
Instead of loading an antispam program on a PC and then setting up filtering manually, ClearMyMail works as a hosted service, intercepting email from a subscriber’s ISP. That’s attraction number one – it protects the email subscription, not the email client running on a particular PC, so it works on any PC, any OS (including mobile ones such as BlackBerry), and any client program used to access that account as long as it’s a POP3-based.
Attraction number two is that the service works. Prior to using ClearMyMail, the account we configured it to protect was receiving up to 10 spam emails a day, or perhaps 60 per week. And that was a new and lightly-used account with a relatively small spam problem. After applying ClearMyMail, that figure dropped to zero, and has continued on zero ever since.
So how does ClearMyMail weave its magic? The company describes its “unique 18-stage filtration process” applied to each message before it is forwarded, but the real innovation of the system is much, much simpler, and is based on whitelisting.
After a subscriber has set up forwarding through the ClearMyMail server by entering POP3 account details, the server forwards a ‘configuration’ message listing all emails recently received on that account, asking that the user ‘allow all’ email from a particular sender, ‘block all’ from that sender, or ‘allow once’ or ‘block once’ from that sender on this occasion only (a precautionary setting for emails whose provenance is uncertain).
Once the legitimate senders have been selected and that information uploaded to ClearMyMail, the subscriber has in effect told the system which senders not to block, allowing the system to figure out which should be blocked.
These permissions can be manually adjusted though the ClearMyMail web interface, and specific contacts can be uploaded to speed up the learning process, something that might be worthwhile if you have more than a few dozen.
Comments
Snapper said: ClearMyMail is preventing me moving to IMAP or Hosted Exchange because I cant think of any application I cannot do without more Ive been using it for several years and love the idea Not having the spam even download into a junk folderI got round the occasional non-existant service by having my original account details on a dormant account on Entourage 2008 client As soon as the service drops once or twice a year on average due to it being hosted on Amazon Cloud servers I just fired up the original settings and usually got a reminder straight away as to just how many spam emails I would have to wade through for checking Last time this happened I got 122 spams in five hoursWith Outlook 2011 Microsoft have kindly removed the option to have an account turned off so Ive set up the original settings on Apple Mail and it works just fineI have to agree about the support though Its utterly non-existant and I would have cheerfully put about 100 people onto it by now if it was betterIf the same techniques could be used for IMAP or even Exchange ClearMyMail could literally kill most SPAM overnight and make themselves very wealthy in the process
John said: Does posting unfavourable reviews do something Half-an-hour ago I received two emails from Clearmymail support AND successfully downloaded 105 blocked emails from the past 4 days
John said: Started a Trial Account with Clearmymail last week At the weekend it collapsed for me Thunderbird valiantly struggles to download my mail from the Clearmymail system manages messages 1 to 9 the SAME messages 1 to 9 it downloads each time then stops on message 10 At the moment it reports messages 10 to 103 are inside Clearmymail but it cant get themResetting Thunderbird to download direct from demoncouk every minute works only partially because Clearmymail is still also downloading my emails into its own system every minute and then locking them up it presumably gets the ones Ive missedWhat to do If I close this Clearmymail Trial Account presumably MY messages 10 to 103 103 at the time of writing will be deleted gone for ever Im naive enough to believe that they genuinely are still there inside their system somewhere and that MAYBE Ill manage to get them one dayTheir Twitter feed says from 3 days ago Apologies for the technical issues this weekend all messages should be coming through in the next hour Well send a full explanation soonTheir support says nothing its apparently a new form of support called Silent
adam said: I have been successfully using Clearmymail for a couple of years and been very happy with it However It now prevents me from accessing my account so ALL mail is blocked until I can sort it out I have not changed the password for my pop account but suddenly CMM tells me that it has an incorrect password I have been unable to log in even with the password that it tells me it has for my account The support is non-existant I have sent numerous emails but just get an automated email back telling me that the password on my account is incorrect and I need to do something urgently tell me about it A good system but NO support whatsoever if something goes wrong