Keep Email Inbox Organized: Alternative to unroll.me Using EmailPet (UNROLL.ME SUCKS!!)

Due to Unroll.me lying to users and selling info to uber which leads to MORE junk email, many users are dumping unroll.me like a hot potato and rightfully so. This product is a great tool however the “free” price tag comes with a cost to our privacy. With Unroll.me not looking like they will quit this “share your data” bad habit any time soon, privacy conscious users are left out in the cold looking for an alternative. After a good many hours seeking an alternative that can A) auto organize incoming emails and B) automate the unsubscribing or removal of spam for our clogged inboxes, I found 1 tool that rose to the top of my list and it looks like the best and cleanest competition to unroll.me and a great alternative to the biggest player in the email management space Sanebox. This tool is EmailPet! and below is some config settings I have used to start my use of EmailPet.

Below are my beginer settings for EmaiPet, and with a price of 5$ per Month for 5 email addresses its a small price to pay when compared to SaneBox. Plus to be quite honest, EmailPet is more easy to use than SaneBox and from my point of view its is less intrusive to my gmail/pop3 email client. With a clean Dashboared to manage lists/filters and the ability to ala-carte  add custom lists/filters, EmailPet can be a great alternative to Unroll.me, SaneBox and almost any other Email management tool.

All of the below settings are OTB minus a Receipts List/Filter that I added. This is another awesome feature of this tool: extensibility allows users to create their own Filter/Lists. By following the configuration of the existing OTB BlackList Filter/Lists, I created my own custom Filter/Lists for Receipts. In my case I created a List first and then the Filter (made of 2 parts) this is then used by EmailPet to “Learn” over time. Its not really learning, it just uses a growing association construct meaning emails Senders added to my Receipts folder are added to a list and then when any NEW emails arrive that match an item in that list the NEW email gets auto moved to the Receipts folder. Very clean and cool!

BTW I tried some other alternatives, that ranged from Open Source Auto UnSubscription to a nice proprietary free (form now) UnSubscribe tool to some very lavish email clients/management frameworks like mailstrom ect which were over kill for my major requirements: 1) Replace the functionality of unroll.me with 2) low cost 3) across several email accounts.

Config of my email Account:

Create a standard folder structure, not required by EmailPet, just a good practice in my opinion, this is used by the various EmailPet ala-carte filters, I created a standard because I have 4 email accounts, so with a standard folder (label) layout I can easily port the emailpet config across all my email accounts:

Filters:

Custom Filter (made up of 2 parts)

Part 1

Part 2

Lists:

SetUp Limited Windows User Profile: Block, Lock & Restict Apps, Folder and Files

These procedures can be used to create a locked down enviornment, e.g:  Child Computer, Limited Admin, Adult Content Filter Protections and File Security

download and install:

1. Filtering Apps: K9 and Stop Filter

2. File Lock Utility

this is one of the only tools I found that locks folders, files and apps. It is simple, intuitive and stable. I have tried several others but none are as good as File Lock

3. Service Lock Utility:

Allows setting security DACL’s on Windows Services, prevents user from stopping services

4. MIsc Apps:

Keep Running Apps

ReStart Script

Configure:

1. Run Service Lock Utility: restrict User from stopping services:

2. Run File Lock Utility lock files

Lock
             pornFilter
             K9 files
             gpedit.msc

Set PWD

3. Local Policy Editor: gpedit.msc

Apps:
App Locker: Lock/Software Protections
                 "C:\Work\Tools\AntiVirus\KidFilter\Free\LockService\ServiceSecurityEditor.exe"
Lock System
                 Microsoft.UserAccounts
                 regedit

RESTRICT access to regedit!

4. Misc GPO

Disable Task Manager

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\System\DisableTaskMgr 

Hide Policy Editor:

User Configuration\Administrative Templates\Windows Components\Microsoft Management Console\Restricted/Permitted snap-ins\Group Policy\Group Policy Object Editor

Disable Any Control Panel Applet

Disable Windows Services Applet

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Policies\Microsoft\MMC\{58221C66-EA27-11CF-ADCF-00AA00A80033} and locate Restrict_Run registry key

5. If User is not Administrator:

Configuring Windows 7 for a Limited User Account
else 

6. If User is Admin but want to limit some apps:

a) Create 2nd Admin User Admin2

b) Set ServiceLock user “Manage Service” DACL  to this user.  Set everyone else Deny “Stop Service”

7.  Assign revoke Terminate_Process DACL  Refs:
         https://stackoverflow.com/questions/5380018/deny-access-to-kiosk-program-process
         https://stackoverflow.com/questions/3121746/prevent-c-sharp-app-from-process-kill
         http://csharptest.net/1043/how-to-prevent-users-from-killing-your-service-process/index.html
         http://ethertubes.com/make-a-program-run-as-a-windows-service-on-boot/
         https://security.stackexchange.com/questions/30985/create-a-unterminable-process-in-windows
         https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windows/desktop/ms684880(v=vs.85).aspx
         https://www.experts-exchange.com/questions/27858649/Protect-An-Application-From-Being-Killed-With-Task-Manager-Delphi.html
        
     Options to implement Process to Keep Filters running:
    
         1) Un-Killable Process: Set ACE to AccessDenied for ProcessAccessRights PROCESS_TERMINATE,
             http://csharptest.net/1043/how-to-prevent-users-from-killing-your-service-process/index.html
             K9filter.exe to
             hlth.ex
             movie.exe
            
         2) Create Boot process:
             a) Service that is a Service Driver
             b) kernel hacking, as mdm said, or diving into rootkit territory. Which I would suggest you avoid.
             c) Winlogon notification package.
            
         2) Create watcher proess:
             a) create app to run at boot
             b) Set to un-killable
             c) Process will watch K9filter.exe , hlth.exe ect
             d) for each process:
                 if process is dead: restart
                 else do nothing
        

Send Email Messages in the Future

Use these tools to setup future emails or coorespondances on a schedule:

https://sendrecurring.appspot.com/
https://www.futureme.org/
http://www.lettermelater.com/
http://whensend.com/
http://futureemailer.com/
http://lettertomyfutureself.net/
http://www.rightinbox.com/

Check if Directory or Path Exists using Powershell and Windows Command (bat)

1. Via Powershell:

$DIRE = "C:\Temp"

if ( Test-Path $DIRE ) {
    echo "Directory Exists"
} else {
    md $DIRE 
}

Check 2 paths:

$source="C:\Temp"
$dest="K:\Temp"

if ( ( Test-Path $source ) -and ( Test-Path $dest ) ) {
     Write-Host "START Write to $dest";
}
else
{
     Write-Host "CAN NOT ACCESS Source or Dest: $dest";
}

2. Via Cmd:

IF EXIST C:\NUL ECHO C: Drive is availablae
IF EXIST C:\Temp\NUL ECHO C:\Temp is availablae

Tune Chrome

From : Tune Android Chrome settings:

1. Turn on Data Saver

2. Turn Off Share Reports with Google

3. Turn on Dont Track Me

4.  Flusg DNS/Disable Async DNS

chrome://net-internals/#dns then

uncheck:

5. Chrome Flags

#1 Enhance Image Loading Time (Number of raster threads) : 4

#2 Enhance Page Loading Time (Experimental canvas features) : Enable

#3 Enhance tab/window close speed (Fast tab/window close) : ENable

#4 Avoid auto-reloading of Tabs (Only Auto-Reload Visible Tabs)  ENable

#5 Password Generation (Password generation)  ENable

#6 TCP Fast Open (TCP Fast Open)  ENable

 
#7 Automatic Tab Discarding (Automatic tab discarding)  ENable

6: Get rid of unwanted plugins

Type chrome://plugins into the address bar and disable any unwanted plugins. Just click the link to disable.

7: Smoother scrolling

Type chrome://flags into the address bar and find Enable fast tab/windows close. This

8. Experimental Canvas Features: Enable for a decent performance boost.

Read more: https://www.tweaktown.com/guides/7370/google-chrome-performance-tweak-guide-make-browser-great-again/index3.html

How to use Search Engine Search with Date Ranges : Compare who can and can’t , Compare results

All Search Engines are not created equally, unfortunately

A typical search may be: I need to limit my search results by date. For example, I want to search for all “c# MVC 4.0” articles in the past year,

We if we compare the following search engines, here is how to search by date (if available) and the results:

https://duckduckgo.com/

https://www.bing.com/
https://www.google.com/
https://search.yahoo.com/

DuckDuckgo.com

Summary: can’t do it.
DuckDuckGo.com is the search engine for people concerned about privacy. Their policy is: “We don’t store your personal info, we don’t follow you around with ads, and we don’t track you.”

Unfortunately, they aren’t set up to date search by anything but : past day, week and month, How lame is that!!!

I love DuckDuckgo.com however I cant live without atleast Pastr Year as a date option!! 

Bing

Summary: able to do it.
search engine owned by Microsoft, Bing can be configured to narrow search results to specific dates.

Yahoo
Summary: can’t do it.
Yahoo.com is one of the oldest search engines not able to filter search results by specific dates. However does allow, Past Day, week and Month, Just like DuckDuckGo.com

Google
Summary: able to do it.
Google.com – .search results based on dates, enter regular search, then “Tools”, then click on “Any time”. In that menu there’s an option for “custom range” where you can enter the dates you want to use:

Winner:

Google and Bing!

Here are results

DuckDuckGo

Yahoo

Google

Bing:

Outlook VBA Run Rules Example

Use this to run Outlook Rules, can be used on a schedule or using Events, I use the Outlook App ItemSent and Quit events, as follows:

Private Sub Application_ItemSend(ByVal Item As Object, Cancel As Boolean)
    Debug.Print "Application_ItemSend"
    DeferSendWithRealSentTime.RunRules
End Sub


Calls...
'*****************************************
' Run Rules via code
' Run Rules starting with Sent using Sent Folder as param
'*****************************************
Public Sub RunRules()
 
On Error GoTo ErrHandler
   
    Dim objRules As Outlook.Rules
    Dim objRule As Outlook.Rule
   
   
    Set objRules = Application.Session.DefaultStore.GetRules
   
   
    For Each objRule In objRules
       
       Debug.Print "objRule.Name-> " & objRule.Name & ", START!"
       'Refer to the subject of the specific task item
     
       If InStr(objRule.Name, "Sent") = 1 Then
            'The corresponding specific rule
           
            With objRule
                 .Enabled = True
                 .Execute ShowProgress:=False, Folder:=Session.GetDefaultFolder(olFolderSentMail), IncludeSubfolders:=False
            End With
             
            Debug.Print "objRule.Name-> " & objRule.Name & ", DONE!"
         
        End If
    Next objRule

   
   GoTo ExitSub
 
   
ExitSub:
    'any always-execute (cleanup?) code goes here -- analagous to a Finally block.
    'don't forget to do this -- you don't want to fall into error handling when there's no error
    Exit Sub

ErrHandler:
    'can Select Case on Err.Number if there are any you want to handle specially

    'display to user
    DebugP "RunRules ERROR: " & Err.Description

    Resume ExitSub

End Sub