New MailWasher Details

We're sure you've got a million questions about the new rewritten MailWasher, so to save our support staff some time and finger tapping, we've tried to answer as many questions here.

Q. Why is MailWasher being rewritten?
A. MailWasher in its current form is around 8 years old now and is not very easy to make the changes you've requested or to fix bugs. So, instead of banging our heads to try and make things work, we're throwing out all the old stuff and starting new. We also wanted something which would keep pace with the next generations of Windows, as well as serve a foundation for future products.

Q. What will be some of the benefits?
A. Here's a short list:
Easier to make changes, add new features and fix bugs
It is better looking and enhances the usability
Spam catching is enhanced and more intelligent
We can do translations in to other languages easily
You'll be able to customize MailWasher and we'll eventually add themes.
Its more stable and faster
Plus many more...
Take a look at the video at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tts5JHw08rI&hd=1

Q. What are the requirements to run the new MailWasher?
A. We've used a Microsoft technology called WPF (Windows Presentation Foundation) to make the user interface. This allows things like zooming, rich colours/animations, well pretty much anything really. It does require a separate install of a Microsoft technology called .NET3.5 SP1 which should be a 10-30 MB download for most people (Windows 7 includes it already and most of you will already have it since it's an 'important update' via Windows Update). You can check if you have it and install it by going to http://www.firetrust.com/en/dotnetversion in Internet Explorer (Please note, it's not a big download, but can take a long time to install, so go and get a coffee). As a result, the new MailWasher will work on Windows XP, Vista and the upcoming Windows 7.

Q. What about older versions of Windows, Mac and Linux?
A. It is our full intention to develop a cross platform version so it will work on all Windows machines, Linux and Mac computers. Most of the hard work has already been done in this regard as the back end processing engine of MailWasher is cross platform, so we only need to do the user interface and bolt that on to the back end. It will be started after we release the fancy Windows version, but note that it may not have all the flashy features like zooming but we'll try and incorporate as much as possible so they work very similarly.

Q. Will there be a cost to upgrade?
A. We've never asked for an upgrade fee for 8 years, and we hope people will understand that since this is essentially a brand new product and a lot of work has gone in to it, we'll be asking for a nominal $10 upgrade fee. If you've purchased MailWasher in the past 6 months, we'll waive the fee.

Q. Will my favourite requested feature be in the new version?
A. Most probably! We've tried to incorporate as many of the feature requests as possible, although time may prohibit us adding in some features until a later version. The new version will have at least most of the important features of the current version and many more.

Q. Will it import all my existing settings automatically?
A. Yes, whenever possible we will try to make this process as seamless as possible.

Q. When will it be available?
A. We're behind schedule as it's been more complicated than we expected, but we will definitely release it first quarter 2010. We will release a public beta version early December with 1000 spots.

Q. Can I be a beta tester?
A. When we release the public beta version (limited to 1000 people at first) we'll get everyone's feedback via special forums.

Q. Can you tell me some more technical things about it?
A. Sure, it's using cross platform C++ in the backend, WPF on the front end. It uses a database (SQLite) to store all your friends list, blacklist, recycle bin emails etc. All other configuration files are XML files.