Email client for Windows
The Bat!
is an
email client
for the
Microsoft Windows
operating system
, developed by Moldovan software company Ritlabs. It is sold as
shareware
and offered in three editions: Home Edition, Professional Edition, and Voyager which is a
portable
version and is included with Professional Edition.
[2]
Developers
[
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]
Ritlabs,
SRL
is based in
Chi?in?u
, Moldova. It was founded as RIT Research Labs in 1992 by Sergey Demchenko and Slava Filimonov,
[3]
and were the creators of the
DOS Navigator
file manager.
Alongside The Bat!, Ritlabs also offer a
mail server
software called
BatPost
.
[4]
Features
[
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]
Protocols and data security
[
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]
The Bat! supports
POP3
and
IMAP
alongside their
SSL
variants, and
SMTP
including secure
STARTTLS
connections.
Microsoft Exchange Server
is also supported via
MAPI
.
The internal
PGP
implementation based on
OpenSSL
lets users encrypt messages and sign them with digital signatures. Digital keys manager is included. PGP up to version 10.0.2 is supported. The Bat! supports
S/MIME
via Internal Implementation or
Microsoft CryptoAPI
, Secure Socket Layer (SSL) v3.0 / Transport Layer Security (TLS) v1.0, v1.1, and 1.2 (as of version 8.5) with AES algorithm.
The Bat! v9.1 supports TLS AEAD AES-GCM cipher suites for secure connections with mail servers. The Bat! v9.2.3 is in compliance with the Google's security standards related to the
OAuth
2.0 protocol.
The Bat! checks attached file extensions and blocks their launching if they are suspicious. The Bat! warns users of
double extension
attachments and allows users to see the real extension. The Bat!'s internal viewer was replaced in version 9.2.1 with the
Chromium web browser
rendering engine to ensure HTML formatting is properly rendered, prevent script execution, and provide anti-phishing information.
Database encryption
[
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]
The Bat! Professional has the option to
encrypt
the message database, address books and configuration files stored on the computer.
[5]
During the first program start, encryption can be activated and the master password can be set. The
AES
algorithm is used for encryption in the CBC process (
Cipher Block Chaining
) with a 128-bit key.
[6]
Message management
[
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]
The Bat! provides virtual folders, advanced filtering, extensive search, a macro language, templates, tags, and color groups to assist in managing email.
Email templates contents may be dynamically changed through the use of macros, which can also be used to automatically execute other user-defined functions such as cursor positioning, addressing changes, identity changes, active account changes and other.
Filtering
[
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]
A filtering system that sorts incoming, outgoing, read, and replied messages to folders; auto-responds; replies with custom templates; forwards, redirects, prints, or exports messages; sends read confirmations; runs external programs and more.
Language
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Originally available in English, Russian, German, Polish and Dutch, the software interface has since been expanded to a total of 18 languages.
Support for
IDNs
that contain characters from non-Latin alphabets such as Arabic, Chinese, Cyrillic and Greek. IDN support includes Latin alphabet-based characters with diacritics, such as those found in French and German.
Import function
[
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The Bat! enables email import from the following programs and file formats:
Address books can be imported in the following formats:
Other than email, The Bat! also has a built-in
feed reader
using
RSS
.
Themes and customization
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In November 2020, with release of version 9.3 The Bat! introduced a number of
themes
to change its look and feel, also providing the ability for further color changes to the themes as provided. Toolbars and menus may also be modified, although doing that is difficult and not well documented.
[
original research?
]
Reception
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]
The Bat! has gained popularity in some regions including Europe.
[7]
Early reviews of The Bat! were largely positive:
ZDNET
in 1998 reviewed the first version and gave it 5 stars out of 5, saying "The Bat! is friendly, powerful, functional and easy to learn".
[8]
Zonia Heath of Shareware Junkies called it "a very fast and effective email client".
[9]
In 2000, TechByter.com also praised The Bat!, calling it an "exceptional piece of work" and noting the small 4 megabyte installation size.
[10]
PCMag
reviewing The Bat! 2.0 in 2004 gave a negative review.
[11]
In 2005, the website DonationCoder.com awarded The Bat! the "Best Email Client".
[12]
Alphr
praised the Professional version of The Bat! 3.6 with its security features.
[13]
In 2011,
Softpedia
reviewed Professional version 5.0 and gave an "Excellent" rating of five out of five.
[14]
PC World
on the other hand gave the Professional version 2.5 stars out of five in 2012, commenting that it "fails to deliver".
[15]
GadgetSpeak.com gave The Bat! 8.0 four stars out of five in 2019.
[16]
Version history
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Major version
|
Initial release
|
Notes
|
1.0 Beta
|
March 1997
|
Supports folders, filtering, viewing
HTML
email without the need to have
Internet Explorer
installed, and international character sets. MailTicker feature.
|
1.00
|
March 1998
|
First stable version. Versions up to 1.31 was used the THtmlViewer
layout engine
by David Baldwin; 1.32 (27 April 2000) introduced a proprietary engine.
|
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
.
|
3.0
|
September 2004
|
Introduced
MAPI
(
Microsoft Exchange Server
) support.
IPv6
support added in v3.95 (December 2006).
|
4.0
|
February 2008
|
Text editor with
Unicode
support. Built-in image viewer.
|
5.0
|
April 2011
|
Improved IMAP protocol support. Quick reply feature and PGP v10 support added in v5.3.4 (December 2012).
|
6.0
|
November 2013
|
Full Unicode compatible.
IDN
support added. First 64-bit release. Support for
RSS
feeds, skype://, callto:// and
tel://
protocols added in v6.3 (March 2014).
|
7.0
|
August 2015
|
CardDAV
address book synchronization and Exchange Web Server (EWS) support.
|
8.0
|
November 2017
|
|
9.0
|
September 2019
|
v9.2.3 is in compliance with Google's security standards related to the
OAuth
2.0 protocol for authentication with Gmail, Outlook and Yandex. Version 9.3.2 extended support to Office365.com and Live.com.
|
10.0
|
June 2022
|
|
11.0
|
December 2023
|
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Logo history
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See also
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References
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External links
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Free software
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Proprietary
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Retail
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Shareware
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Donationware
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Discontinued
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Related technologies
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Related topics
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