The Bat!

Infobox_Software
name = The Bat!


caption =
developer = RitLabs
latest_release_version = 4.0.34
latest_release_date = September 8, 2008
operating_system = Windows
genre = E-mail client
license = Proprietary
website = [http://www.ritlabs.com/en/products/thebat/ www.ritlabs.com/en/products/thebat/]

The Bat! is a shareware e-mail client for the Microsoft Windows operating system, developed by RitLabs, a company based in Chişinău, Moldova.

History

1.0 Beta, the first public version, was released in March 1997. It supported folders, filtering, viewing HTML e-mail without the need to have Internet Explorer installed, and international character sets. It also had a special feature named Mail Ticker.

1.00 Build 1310, the first stable version, came to public in March 1998.

1.32 introduced the "Robin" layout engine on 2000-04-27. Versions up to 1.31 had used the THtmlViewer engine by David Baldwin.

Version 2.0 (September 2003) introduced IMAP support, a basic HTML editor, Anti-Spam and Anti-Virus Plug-ins and a Scheduler, and could import messages from Microsoft Office Outlook and Outlook Express

Version 3.0 (September 2004) introduced customisable User Interface, virtual folders, Mail Chat, Biometric authentication and support of MAPI protocol to connect to Microsoft Exchange Servers.

Version 3.95 (December 2006) supports IPv6.

Version 4.0 (February 2008) has Address History option, Favorite Folders sets and URL manager for HTML images retrieval. The Bat!'s text editor supports Unicode, internal image viewer supports rotate, advanced resize and zoom algorithms and full screen mode.

Market position

In the marketplace it competes with Eudora, Pegasus Mail and several browser-integrated e-mail clients as a less virus-prone replacementcite book |last = Gaskin |first = James |title = Broadband Bible |publisher = Wiley |id = ISBN 0-7645-6951-1 |pages = 144] for Microsoft Outlook Express. It is well respected within the computer industry,cite book |last = Kraynak |first = Joe |title = Top 100 Simplified Tips & Tricks |id = ISBN 0-7645-7474-4 |pages = 133] cite news |url=http://www.pcpro.co.uk/reviews/83704/the-bat-36-professional.html |title=Product Reviews: The Bat! 3.6 Professional |last=Winder |first=Davey |work=PC Pro Magazine, Issue 138 |year=2006 |month=April |authorlink=Davey Winder] and has won a number of awards.cite web |url=http://www.ritlabs.com/en/products/thebat/prizes.php |title=Awards won by The Bat! |publisher=Ritlabs |authorlink=Ritlabs] The user interface of The Bat! has a high level of available customization. It has powerful message filtering capabilities.cite book |last= Randall |first= Neil |title= PC Magazine Windows XP Solutions |edition= 2nd Edition| year= 2005|month= November|publisher= Wiley | id= ISBN 0-471-74752-1 |pages= 163] It also supports templates, allowing three different levels of template creation. This along with macros allows for extensive automation of almost every aspect of mailing.cite web | url=http://www.download.com/The-Bat-Professional-Edition-/3003-2367_4-10395729.html?tag=tab_rev | publisher=CNET | title=The Bat! Editor's review]

Forged headers

A number of Internet service providers, [cite newsgroup
title = My error post about The Bat!
author = NotOptedIn
date=2002-07-30
newsgroup = news.admin.net-abuse.email
url = http://groups.google.co.uk/group/news.admin.net-abuse.email/browse_thread/thread/8875f47194f94c6d/6a07ed46ab261849
accessdate = 2007-01-26] sites and organisations [cite newsgroup
title = Use of "X-mailer: The Bat!" in spam
author = Spam Guy
date=2006-06-08
newsgroup = alt.spam
url = http://groups.google.com/group/alt.spam/browse_frm/thread/e3cbdb605b711b68/d46babf766bd1c02
accessdate = 2007-01-26] claim that The Bat! is a spamming tool and, on that basis, block messages containing "The Bat!" in an x-mailer header.

Many spam messages have the X-Mailer header field set to The Bat!, but this is because it is one of the default settings in the Advanced Mass Sender program, which is frequently used for sending spam mail.

Some ISPs set traffic filters that block messages containing "X-Mailer: The Bat!". This forces legitimate users to configure The Bat! to not include X-Mailer field into the messages that they send.

Programs such as SpamAssassin can detect many instances of forged "X-Mailer: The Bat!" headers by looking at other parts of the message, for example HTML body, message-id, charset and boundary information. [http://spamassassin.apache.org/full/2.6x/dist/rules/20_ratware.cf rules to detect forged The Bat! messages]

ee also

*Comparison of e-mail clients

External links

* [http://www.ritlabs.com/the_bat/ The Bat! homepage]

References