A: No. STAMPS ARE FREE for low volume mailers. Unless you are sending out thousands of messages per day stamps will be issued with a small delay, starting at two-tenths of a second. You won't even notice it and your mail will be stamped and properly validated by recipients with UseBestMail. The system is designed to let all non-commercial users participate without purchasing stamps. Only large commercial mailers will need to purchase stamps.

A: Yes, absolutely. Mail you send out will be received normally by non-UseBestMail recipients. The stamp will be there but they won't even see it. Mail you receive from non-UseBestMail senders will be treated as you specify, i.e., marked or perhaps directed to a separate mail folder. It is entirely up to you. (See next question also.)

A: The Whitelist is a list of addresses you send mail to. UseBestMail automatically maintains the Whitelist for you, but you can manually add to or delete from it. If you receive mail from an address on your whitelist, and the mail lacks a UseBestMail stamp, it will be delivered as a 'Whitelist' item, i.e., essentially as good mail. Stamped mail is handled as such, even if the sender's address is on the whitelist. In essence, everyone you send mail to is treated as a friend and receives the privilege of responding through the UseBestMail system even if they don't have the software themselves.

A: You'd use it so that the correspondence from and to friends will be handled in a privileged, clean, spam-free environment. We hope that your friends will be so impressed that eventually they'll all use it too.

A: Absolutely. And if these people also UseBestMail you'll know right away that their mail is genuine. But if they don't UseBestMail their mail can still be validated by the UseBestMail Challenge/Response feature, which verifies the source of the mail and adds the sender's address to your whitelist and his email to your inbox.

A: This service lets you establish an email account at UseBestMail. All of your outgoing mail is stamped and non-stamped incoming mail is rejected. It is a truly spam-free channel for your email. In addition to accessing the account via your usual email software you also get web, cell phone and Blackberry access to your account.

A: No. The mailbox service is for those who want a spam-free channel but can't or don't want to use the client software.

A:Yes. The Mailbox Service (see above) can be accessed as web-mail or as an SMTP/POP account just like any other ISP's mailbox. So it can be used by anyone with email software that uses SMTP/POP as most all of them do.

A: If you regularly receive mail from a particular address, such as a brokerage or a newsletter sender, you can add the sender's address to your Whitelist, either manually with the Whitelist Manager or by responding to a message you've received -- which automatically adds the address to the Whitelist. We expect that eventually (not too far down the road) commercial mailers will recognize the advantages of sending stamped mail so it can be handled as priviledged mail by UseBestMail equipped recipients. This is the reason we're offering UseBestMail without cost to non-commercial users.

A: One way to ease into the UseBestMail environment is to set up a separate email address (account) for use exclusively with UseBestMail. You can give out this address exclusively to your correspondents who UseBestMail. By using this method you can block and delete at the server all non-stamped mail and achieve a totally spam-free channel for selected email correspondents to use. You might also consider the UseBestMail Mailbox Service which does all of this automatically.

A: Yes, it you're careful about the installation. Just do one thing at a time and check to make sure everything works between steps. Most spam blockers and anti-virus programs are compatible with UseBestMail. Usually, you won't have any problem if you install UseBestMail last after verifying that everything else works, and then uninstall it first, if you need to uninstall an anti-virus or spam filter. You'll have to experiment to assure yourself that mail you want won't be blocked, but you'd have to do that anyway, whether or not you UseBestMail.

A: There are several options you can use to separate UseBestMail from other mail. One of the easiest and most convenient is to let UseBestMail mark the subject line of each message, then use the Filter capability of your email program to direct mail to folders of your choice depending on how the subject is marked. This way, all of your UseBestMail correspondence can be directed to a folder of your choice. Subject lines marked with [G] for "Good" are stamped and verified. All marked with [Q] are stamped but not verified, and all with [C] have commercial stamps. While a [B] is applied to all non-stamped email unless it is on the Whitelist. In the latter case it receives a [W]. (You can choose this option by right-clicking the U icon and selecting 'Configure' from the pop-up menu.)

A: Yes. You can instruct UseBestMail to delete these messages from the POP Server and not download them at all, or you can specify that the messages will simply be left on the server and you can then download only your stamped or Whitelist messages.

A: Not all large scale mailing is spam. As you think about it you'll probably recognize a number of large scale mail sources you're glad to hear from. For example, statements and confirmations you receive from your stock broker, confirmations of internet purchases purchases, newsletters, certain catalogs, and mailings from membership organizations are all legitimate and usually welcome mail from large scale mailers. These mailers, because they do send a lot of mail, purchase stamps from UseBestMail to ensure that their mailings reach the UseBestMail community as stamped mail. We sell stamps to subsidize the free software for non-commercial mailers and very importantly to prevent spammers from using UseBestMail. (See next question and answer.)

A: The short answer is the cost. Spamming is profitable only when the cost of sending bulk emails is nearly zero. Because we don't offer discounts to anyone, spammers, no matter how much mail they want to send, can't buy stamps at a discount -- and won't pay our price because that would destroy the economics of their business.

A: Actually, a spammer can send a limited number of emails just like you do. However, the key words here are "limited number." Each message sent by a given user specifies a mandatory delay before the next message can be stamped. A message is limited to 20 recipients, and each recipient counts in figuring out delays. As the number of emails sent increases, so does the delay, so it becomes uneconomical and very cumbersome to send out large mailings without commercial stamps. You will most likely not find it too cumbersome to send out a mailing to your club's 100 or so members, but a spammer attempting to send email to 10,000 or a million people will certainly be frustrated.

A: Most of the other systems rely on censorship of the mail, either by mechanical means or by having recipients 'vote' on what is spam. The weakness of these systems is that they are reactive. The spammer acts and the blockers, after figuring out what the spammers are doing, react. UseBestMail prevents spam from being sent as stamped mail to UseBestMail users. The only way a spammer can get through this is to figure out a way to obtain stamps. In the early days there will be little incentive to do this -- until UseBestMail usage becomes widespread. So you and your UseBestMail friends are safe. Later on, we have one point of defense, the UseBestMail server, which is simple enough to be quite robust. We can't afford to be cocky, but then neither can anyone else in this business. Anyway, we're on your side.

A: At present UseBestMail works with Microsoft Windows later than Win-95. There are currently no versions available for Linux or Apple, however you can use a Mailbox account for these. Supported Windows email programs are: a) Automatic installation: Outlook, Outlook Express, Netscape, Eudora (6), Pegasus; b) Most other windows programs are supported through a simple manual installation whereby settings are transferred from the email program to the UseBestMail client. We are working to expand our supported programs and platforms and welcome technology licensing inquiries.

A: It works for those webmail services that offer POP/SMTP access as some do. This allows web mail to be sent and received through an email program such as Outlook. There are also third party software packages that provide POP/SMTP for web mail accounts. We'd welcome inquiries from companies wanting to implement UseBestMail integration directly into their web-mail software or service.

A: Yes, but who'd want to?

A: Send me an email at the address below.