PocoMail
http://www.pocosystems.com/

What's It Do?

PocoMail is an email program with intelligent Bayesian and user-defined spam filters to detect junk mail, safe message viewer that guards against common email security exploits, and filters to route incoming messages automatically or manually.


Does It Do What It Promises?

Reviewer 1. I use Groupwise at work (no choice - large network), I have tried MS Outlook. I have never been fluent or intuitive with either program – they are so cumbersome that I find them difficult to navigate and have never adopted or recommended either one. I have used Outlook Express and other readers and settled with OE for many reasons and have used it for several years. I was able to set up and use PocoMail instantly. It was a smooth, easy transition for me. It seems that everything I want to do with email already has an icon or right-click menu choice waiting for me. The best feature is the instant junk or good sorting icons for the spam filter.

Reviewer 2. Yes, the program performed exactly as promised.

Reviewer 3. Yes.


Was It Easy To Install?

Reviewer 1. Absolute simplicity. I was able to download and load it on my XP computer, install my address book, download my mail, sort out spam, and send new email in well under 30 minutes.

Reviewer 2. Yes, the installation was quick and painless, a standard Windows install. Furthermore, PocoMail does not install any files into the system directory, including any DLL files, making it easy to move between different folders, drives, even computers.

Reviewer 3. Yes, very easy. The email account setup was clear.


Good points?

Reviewer 1. It was easy to download and install. It was easy to navigate and find and set up features that I wanted without spending endless hours searching through help files. It offers an integrated Bayesian spam filter that I definitely need. Most menu items are available by icon or right-click. It has a very small footprint.

Reviewer 2. I have used PocoMail since it was first selected as PC Magazine’s Shareware Program of the Year 2000, and it just keeps getting better with each new release. Its interface has always been good, but with this latest version, it’s better still. You can completely transform the screen layout as well as change the color scheme, and there’s a large range of preset skins from which to choose. You can even edit each interface element individually. Of course, there’s more to an email program than good looks. PocoMail is a small yet powerful email program that does not compromise your privacy or security, as it is not vulnerable to email viruses. Unlike some competing products, PocoMail doesn’t use the Internet Explorer component to preview your HTML messages. Instead, it uses an internal HTML viewer. PocoMail does not understand VB Script or JavaScript, which are used to write email viruses. PocoMail will not even run PocoScript, its own scripting language, from messages you receive. While VBScript and JavaScript let a third-party control your mailer, PocoScript was designed to let you control your mailer. You’ll need to enable PocoScript on a message (to better process it) before the script can run. The program supports POP, APOP, IMAP, NNTP and SSL, and you can password protect the program or individual emails. You can also create blocked senders and trusted senders, lists simply by pasting email addresses into a text file. You can strip out HTML formatting or adjust font sizes in incoming messages, and there’s a Sanitise Message button that gets rid of dangerous HTML without removing formatting (an option you can set as a filter so that it applies to all incoming messages by default.) You can also get PocoMail to search incoming messages for suspicious attachments. PocoMail PE (Portable Edition) is, simply put, a portable edition of PocoMail which will allow you to take your email on the road with you. It is designed to work from any removable drive like USB drive (flash drive). It has all of the features of PocoMail and will run on just about any Windows system.

Reviewer 3. Very easy to understand interface, nothing out of the ordinary or obscure. It was also very easy to turn on the headers of a message , good for finding out who actually sent the email. The tabbed interface was nice. It allowed for easy movement between mailboxes. The filters were very complete and easy to use. It was easy to allow or block image content for e-mail, easier than Outlook's.


Weak points?

Reviewer 1. As with so many weak points, I often wonder if the difficulty might lie between the keyboard and the floor. I have not been able to get the news reader to function and response to my emails about the problem have not been forthcoming. I did read the Help files. Subfolders are very accessible by right click, but are not displayed in the tree form with which I am familiar. It seems to be a little slower to process and display mail, probably due to the fact that it keeps more stuff on the server and may take a moment to process. I seem to forget how slow life was with dialup and 36.6 modem or older ( I can remember buying the 36.6 as an expensive upgrade). We all become such gluttons for speed and instantaneous gratification. One of the reasons that I liked Outlook Express is the fact that I could stay in one program for both mail and reading the few newsgroups that I enjoy. Supposedly PocoMail is capable of the same thing. I am not looking for anything very fancy, just the ability to read text newsgroups. I have never been able to access news from PocoMail and the several emails I have sent have only brought one response and that was a question. Pocosystems replied: We are surprised at the reviewer’s difficulty in getting the newsreader to work. The function does in fact work.

Reviewer 2. One has to look hard and be pretty picky to find any serious weak points in either PocoMail or PocoMail PE. The Bayesian filtering engine is precise and gets rid of junk mail reliably; however, it’s best to turn off PocoMail’s complimentary rules as they proved to have a tendency to produce false positives. PocoMail does not support OpenPGP and S/MIME secure mail natively, and its IMAP support is lacking. PocoMail PE could be improved by having a removable medium, but quite frankly I see no real need for this software as PocoMail standard will work just as well as the only real difference between the two is that the PE version has a simpler default skin and the addition of network profiles that make switching between network environments easy. All in all a great idea done well, but you can just as easily use standard PocoMail for that purpose.

Reviewer 3. The “Send queue messages” was not easy to find. This button should have been part of the main toolbar if there were any queued messages. Marking messages could have been clearer; it took me a few tries to mark the message without having to use the menus.


Other Comments?

Reviewer 1. I am not a big fan of skins, but there are multiple skins available with and for this software.

Reviewer 2. If you are tired of Outlook and all of its viruses and vulnerabilities, or the huge bloat of Outlook and its huge footprint, then PocoMail is for you. I never thought I would do it, but I have finally replaced Outlook as my email client. My Outlook Address Book is no longer available for redirection by hackers! PocoMail does everything Outlook can do and much more at a fraction of the price. It is user-friendly enough for newbies, but there are plenty of advanced features for even the most demanding email addict. It’s a great piece of software with few if any discernable bugs and it integrates with Windows seamlessly. I can and will recommend it with hesitation or reservation.

Reviewer 3. A timed delayed send that would allow mail to be sent at a specific time would be a nice addition. There is so much to this that a tutorial would have been good to have. Overall, PocoMail is a very complete email package with a fairly small memory footprint. As I've used this application I have come to really like it. Email programs are used so much that unless there are specific things about your current email program that you dislike, it is difficult to switch to something different. This program has made the switch worthwhile.


Will You Continue To Use It?

Reviewer 1. PocoMail is definitely on my system to stay. I still use Outlook Express as my newsreader. I know it is not a great reader, but it is sufficient for my needs. If I could get PocoMail to read the news, I would probably remove OE and use PocoMail exclusively.

Reviewer 2. Yes, most definitely.

Reviewer 3. No.

Reviewer 4. Yes.

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