I did a lot of research in the last few days, and boy am I ticked off now--once again. Many of you might recall my previous complaints about Incredimail. If not, click here to catch up. Yes, Incredimail took content that was free before and put a price tag on it, even for the faithful users who bought their program. I feel that this was wrong, and to get right to the point, they've done it AGAIN very recently. Remember their Junk Mail filtering feature built into Incredimail? Well, I just learned that they removed it and now call it "Junk Filter Plus" and charge a fee for it. And on top of that, it's an ANNUAL fee!! This is horrible, and certainly tells you what you can expect from them. It's all about the money. Gotta keep the machine running. I wouldn't be surprised if at some point in the near future we see a "PLATINUM" gallery appear, which would contain content even BETTER than their "Gold Content" and cost yet another--completely separate--fee, most likely annual.

That's not all though--they've done one more thing that really sucks. They wrote an "Outlook Addon" for Incredimail some time ago, over a year ago. This add-on is really the only reason I still used Incredimail. I use Outlook for my e-mail, so I get the huge benefits of all of Outlook's features (contact management, excellent calendaring, sophisticated e-mail features, etc.) yet I can still use Incredimail stationery, animations, e-cards, etc., when I want, at the click of a button.

So, when I thought about it I began to wonder if there have been any updates to the Incredimail Outlook Add-on. I went to Incredimail's site and was shocked to find no mention of it whatsoever! It's been completely removed from their site, and even all of the links right from the Outlook Addon itself that go to Incredimail's site--like Help, Tips, and FAQ's--give me an error! The pages don't exist at all any more! So my fear was that they discontinued this product because people using it don't constantly see the annoying  "Junk Filter Plus" folder that nags you to buy it every time you click on it.

In an initial attempt to try to determine what they're doing, I sent a VIP support message to them and told them I use the Outlook Add-on and I reformatted my PC and reinstalled everything, but I don't have a copy of the Addon any more, so I need to reinstall it. I asked them where I can get it because I can't find it on their site any more. Here's the response I got:

This was an annoying short response to my request, and since Ronen told me to let him know if I have any more questions, I replied with a few more:

I don't expect a satisfactory response to my questions, if I get anything at all, but I'll be sure to post any response I get. So I'm beginning to look at alternatives once again, only this time there's a difference. I'm still using Outlook for my e-mail, contacts, appointments, calendar, etc., so that won't change. It's an excellent program with tons of features. Microsoft--And every other respectable software company I've seen before--Doesn't have a policy of routinely removing program features and content and charging a fee for them, so I don't think I have to worry about losing features in Outlook that I value, so I'll stick with it. I would just like to find a source for nice, quality stationery. I'm open to suggestions.

Update: 12/13/05 - I received two e-mails from Ronen this morning.  Here's the first one:

So basically he told me everything I already knew, and I knew the JunkFilter was part of the basic Incredimail program as well as the Premium, but it was still removed!  They DID remove features, but they'd rather talk their way around it by telling us we didn't pay for them.  But if JunkFilter Plus is so much better than JunkFilter, why did they even HAVE to remove JunkFilter?  Why leave all of your existing users totally unprotected when you once helped them control their JunkMail, even if only a little bit?  It just doesn't seem right to me.

The discount offer was pretty much what I expected.  If it gets me into their annual subscription system, sure, why wouldn't they give me money off up-front?

Well, I've had it.  I am finally throwing in the towel and giving up.  There are no refunds on their Premium program or Gold Gallery, and I have Lifetime Licenses for both, so I'm out the money, but it was a lesson well learned.

All I can say is "More Power To Open Source!"  And I hope to see an awesome program of this nature in the future.  Thunderbird is sure a far-superior open-source e-mail client already, and it's been out for quite some time.  It just needs more add-ons to offer templating abilities similar too (and hopefully much better) than Incredimail does.

I hope this posting helps others in some small way, whether you're searching for a nice e-mail client, having your own troubles with Incedimail, or just looking for something better.  Learn from my mistakes.