Inboxer Review
For a time, most email users convince themselves that the “delete” key is sufficient to cope with the spam problem. While effective, sifting through emails in this manner to pick out the 5% you want to read, gradually becomes more and more time consuming.
You could change your email address, but you risk losing business from those who don’t get your new details. You could use a third-party solution that asks senders to click a validation link before their email is sent, but you still risk losing business from those who can’t be bothered to jump through your hoops.
Spam blockers are the solution that most people turn to, but this creates a whole new headache.
Finding one that works.
The trouble with spam blocking software is that, unless it contains an exact duplicate of your brain, it may choose to keep emails you want to block or, worse, block emails you want to keep.
I remember, last year, trying a piece of software that flagged keywords and sent offenders to a “Blocked” folder. Frustratingly, however, it regularly pulled out legitimate email which meant I was forced to trawl the “Blocked” folder every day, to see if it had made a mistake.
A glorified “Delete” key, then.
Then I read about a piece of software called “Inboxer”. It was featured in a magazine article, rounding-up various spam-blocking software and Inboxer was highlighted as the most effective.
Inboxer was created by a company called Audiotrieve. The designers have a background in speech recognition and language and it is these skills that has helped them produce a powerful piece of software for use with Microsoft Outlook.
Inboxer installs quickly and easily and adds a couple of small buttons to your Outlook toolbar. It begins by scanning email in your inbox and getting a taste for the emails you keep.
Once you start downloading emails, Inboxer goes to work.
The first thing you’ll notice is the speed with which the software filters emails. It can sort through the messages, almost as quickly as they come in.
Emails it believes are legitimate stay in your inbox. Emails it believes are spam, go into a newly created “Blocked” folder. And emails it is unsure of, go into a “Review” folder.
Nothing new so far and you’d be forgiven for wondering what the fuss is about. Then the penny drops.
Inboxer’s skill at determining spam is spookily effective. In six months of using the software, I can count on the fingers of one hand, the number of times Inboxer has incorrectly blocked an email I wanted to keep. And of all of these instances occurred within the first few weeks of use. Inboxer has not made a mistake in this manner since then.
Occasionally it fails to block a piece of spam but, at least it errs on the side of caution. I have no fear of Inboxer losing an email I want to keep.
My confidence in Inboxer’s ability not to block email I want to keep has grown to such an extent that, these days, I rarely do more than skim the “blocked” folder.
Emails that land in the “review” folder are simply highlighted and then sorted by clicking on the “Keep” or “Block” button. Alternatively, you can choose to whitelist or blacklist emails from an individual or from an entire domain.
The review folder sees a lot of action in the first few days of use but, as the software learns from your choices, the number of emails you are asked to make a decision on gradually decreases.
What makes Inboxer so effective, is the method it uses to determine the likelihood of an email being considered as spam.
In part, Inboxer, uses a Bayesian filter. Bayesian filters are based on the work of an 18th century minister called Thomas Bayes. He demonstrated how to analyse information in a certain way in order to sort it into categories.
Inboxer analyses each word in an email individually and then gives it a percentage depending on how often it appears in spam compared to how often it appears in emails you keep. Header information is also factored in and then Inboxer gives the email an overall score.
The range of the score depends on where the email finishes up. And because it’s dependant on the database you are building up, the software learns from your decisions and becomes more effective over time.
As you’ve probably gathered by now, I love this software. It’s fast, effective and the time it has saved me over the last six months has paid for the software several times over.
Oh yes, the price. If you’re expecting software this good to be expensive, you’re in for a disappointment.
The entire product with no hidden extras, no subscription fees and free updates is just $27.95 (US Dollars). And you can even try it, free, for 21 days.
The free trial is a complete package, then after 3 weeks you will need to purchase a registration key to continue using it.
I said last week, I had a theory why you might not have heard about this before. And it may be simply that Inboxer have no MLM for reviewers to make money from and even the affiliate program is hidden away.
If it comes to a choice between promoting an average solution you can make money from and promoting a good solution that you can’t, maybe too many opt for the former.
So I’m not going to make money from this review. I’m just a satisfied customer that thinks other people should try this software too.
You can read more reviews of Inboxer at: www.inboxer.com/reviews.shtml
www.inboxer.com
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This review first appeared in The Nettle Ezine.
If you enjoyed it, why not try The Nettle Magazine at www.thenettle.com
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