It’s been a couple of years now since I wrote NoSpyMail, and I haven’t really done much with it. Each month I get a few nice emails from users that are using it – and I’m always pleasantly surprised to hear that they still like it. It’s a simple little utility, probably written more out of anger than anything else.
But today I got a friendly email from a guy that is upgrading to Vista, and he reported that it wouldn’t install for him. OK – so I fixed that (I think!) for him. But I asked why he used it when he’s using Outlook 2003. After all, Outlook 2003 already has html image filtering built in.
His answer was that he still needs it. Even though we may filter out *most* of those HTML emails, how many do we still click on because they are from our “legitimate” places, e.g. costco, fandango, ticketmaster, etc. These are emails that we want to receive, but even these “legitimate” mass-email-senders are using trackers to spy on who’s clicking.
He’s got a valid point. He also thinks he gets a lot less spam as a result of using NoSpyMail. Hard to say, but I hope he’s right.
So, after having not used NoSpyMail myself for quite a while, I brought it back into my software lineup. Works great (it ought to – I wrote it! :-), and really doesn’t tax you in any way except that it filters out nasty HTML trackers. I was a little annoyed by the default settings because you get notified *so much* about the spymail. So I quickly unchecked the box to “Notify me when Spymail is discovered” (available via the Options). I don’t need to be notified – just clean it up and let me read my mail safely.
Sorry for the blatant plug.