running
in the system tray, the Main Configuration Screen appears. When you open Bongosoft AntiSpam either by the clicking
the icon in the Bongosoft AntiSpam program group or double-clicking the
BAS icon running
in the system tray, the Main Configuration Screen appears.
During installation a shortcut is added to your “startup” group, which engages the Bongosoft AntiSpam Main Configuration screen. You can open the Main Configuration screen either by clicking on “Configure AntiSpam” within the Bongosoft AntiSpam program group, or right clicking the BAS icon in the system tray (lower right hand side of your screen) and selecting Configure AntiSpam. The Main Configuration screen contains the primary AntiSpam controls.
AntiSpam Passcode: Here you enter your AntiSpam passcode. Tip: You should not use a passcode that you use for any secure accounts (bank, etc), as your passcode will be visible to email senders during the authentication process. Examples of good passcodes include ORANGE, KITTYABC, BEACH17 or ISLAND…
AntiSpam Protection: This control allows you to Enable or Disable AntiSpam protection.
Show Progress: Checking this checkbox turns on the progress indicator. The progress indicator is displayed when BAS is busy retrieving and authenticating your email. You have the choice of a Spining Icon or if your operating system is Windows XP you will have and additional selection of Captioned Spinning Icon. Spinning Icon progress simply animates (spins) the BAS icon running in the system tray if you hover your mouse over the spinning icon a progress caption will appear. Captioned Spinning Icon displays a progress caption during the entire time BAS is processing.
Bongosoft AntiSpam (BAS) uses the “Authentication Database” (ADB) to hold a list of email addresses which, have either an “Allowed” or “Blocked” designation. When you retrieve your email using your email client application (e.g. Outlook Express or Outlook), the sender of each message is checked against all email addresses in the ADB. If a match is found and it is designated “Allowed”, the email is immediately allowed to pass to your email application client. If a match is found and it is designated “Blocked”, the email either immediately deleted or is stored in the Quarantine Database for a prescribed period of time, whichever you choose. BAS provides an ADB viewer where you can view, add, remove, import and export additional addresses.
Display Addresses that are: This control allows you to view only the selected (allowed, blocked, white list, or black list) entries. Any or all of the check boxes may be selected. This feature is very useful when you are looking for a specific ADB entry.
Sort By: This control allows you to sort the ADB entries by name, domain or zone (the zone is designated by the letters following the dot in an email address).
Email Account: Bongosoft AntiSpam keeps a separate ADB for every email account you use. This control allows you to view the specific ADB for the selected account.
Blocked Messages Action: This control tells Bongosoft AntiSpam what to do with messages from blocked sources. You can either leave them in the Quarantine Database (QDB) where they will remain until the quarantine period has expired or you can have them deleted immediately.
Add: Pressing the Add Button brings up the “Add Email Addresses” screen where you can Add more addresses to your Authentication Database. See ‘Adding Addresses to the ADB’ section.
Remove: Pressing the Remove Button causes the selected addresses to be deleted from the Authentication Database.
Import: Pressing the Import Button brings up “Import Addresses” screen where you can import white and black lists from the bongosoft server or from a file located on your computer.
Export: Pressing the Export Button brings up “Export Addresses” screen where you can export your Authentication Database to local file on your computer. This allows you to share your Authentication Database with friends, family members or colleagues.
Each address can have one of the following controls:
Note: “Block Email From” has precedence over “Allow Everyone in Domain”.
Note: The messages’ “To” and “Cc” addresses are authenticated for distribution lists, as distribution list subscribers are generally Blind Carbon Copied (Bcc).
Note: “Allow Email From” has precedence over “Block Everyone in Domain”.
Pressing the Add Button in the Authentication Database brings up the following screen where you can add new addresses. Here, you can either Allow or Block senders, domains or entire IP addresses.
Pressing the Import Button in the Authentication Database brings up the following screen. Here you can add addresses to you Authentication Database from various sources listed below.
Using the Import Addresses to the Authentication Database, you can import entire lists of addresses for all your email accounts to use or just the selected “Import To” selected account. Lists can be imported from the following sources:
You can import from Bongosoft.com
white-list email addresses and black-list email addresses to add to your
ADB. The black-list includes known spammer addresses that will be authenticated
as ‘blocked’. The white-list addresses are trusted senders and will be
authenticated as ‘allowed’.
Bongosoft AntiSpam (BAS) uses the “Quarantine Database” (QDB), to hold all emails pending authentication. When you retrieve your email using your email client application (e.g. Outlook Express or Outlook), BAS checks the senders email address against all email addresses in the ADB. If a match is not found, the email message is temporarily stored in the QDB and a AntiSpam Alert message is automatically sent to the sender of the unauthorized email message requesting a response containing your AntiSpam passcode. Bongosoft AntiSpam provides a Quarantine Database viewer where you can manually “Allow” or “Block” the senders of any or all of the email messages held in the Quarantine Database.
Email Account: Bongosoft AntiSpam maintains a Quarantine Database for each of your email accounts. Use this control to select which email accounts QDB to view.
Hold Messages: This setting controls the amount of time (hold-time) an email is to be quarantined, after which the email message is deleted permanently.
Passcode Attempts: This setting controls how many times we try to authenticate an unknown sender using Passcode Authentication.
Display Reminder: Bongosoft AntiSpam provides a reminder to check the Quarantine Database. This setting determines the time interval between reminders.
Blocked Messages: This tells you how many spam messages Bongosoft AntiSpam blocked.
Pressing the Email Accounts button in the Main Configuration Screen brings up the Email Accounts Screen shown below. Here you can view the accounts Bongosoft AntiSpam has automatically detected. This screen allows you to optionally Add, Edit or Remove email accounts.
New: This control brings up a blank Email Account Screen, which guides you through the process of adding a new account.
Edit: This control button brings up the Email Account Screen with the current settings for the selected account. From there you can edit the selected account information.
Import: This control button automatically scans the windows registry and imports all email accounts.
Remove: This control button deletes the selected account(s).
The Email Account Settings Screen allows you to either add or change an email account’s settings.
User Name: Enter your real name here (e.g. Joe Smith)
Email Address: Enter the account email address here.
Confirm Email Address: Enter the account email address here. The entry here should be the same as Email Address.
Incoming Mail Server (POP3): Enter the account POP email server address here (e.g. pop.myserver.com, mail.mydomain.com)
Outgoing Email Server (SMTP): Enter the account SMTP email server address here (e.g. smtp.myserver.com, mail.mydomain.com).
Account Name: Enter the Name Here. This is the account name you use to log into the POP server. (i.e. MyUserName, MyUserName+mydomain.com)
Outgoing Mail Authentication: If your email account requires you to use email account authentication for your outgoing email (SMTP), enter your account and password in the provided fields.
Bongosoft AntiSpam provides an advanced feature, which allows you to synchronize the state of Passcode Authentication between multiple computers. If you access your email from more than one location, with Bongosoft AntiSpam installed on each computer, you will want to enable this feature to ensure the Passcode Authorization process only occurs once for each unknown sender.
Select Email Account: Here you select the email account to which the Server Synchronization settings apply.
Control: Here you can either enable or disable synchronization for a give account. This setting overrides the general Server Synchronization setting on the Main Configuration Screen. Note: The Enable Server Synchronization checkbox on the Main Configuration Screen is a general enable for this feature. The Individual accounts must be enabled here as well.
Perform Synchronization: These radio buttons Enable or Disable Server Synchronization for the selected account.
Synchronization Event Status: These fields tell you when the last synchronization event occurred, what computer generated the synchronization data, the version of the synchronization data and the operational status of the synchronization event.
Server Synchronization: Checking this checkbox enables Server Synchronization. Server Synchronization is used if you access your email from more than one computer with BAS installed on each computer. It ensures the authentication state is maintained between all computers. See section “Server Synchronization” for more details on this feature.