- cross-posted to:
- privacy@programming.dev
- cross-posted to:
- privacy@programming.dev
I’m seeing lots of people subscribing with their real email address to different newsletters or random websites that they might use once in a while.
For a couple of years I have run a proxy SMTP that I kept to forward emails to my real address, as a privacy measure.
People tend to use the “+” sign in order to identify if their address was sold, for example signing up with “michael.john+amazon@gmail.com”, now what most do not realize is the fact that when selling data to third parties, most companies parse their email lists and clear our those “+” sign. (Source: I have worked with companies that do that)
I found the relay from Mozilla to be massively useful in this case, so if anyone is interested, have a try with it:
As a side not: If you’re using firefox, it integrates nicely into your browser, right clicking on a field and selecting “Use relay mask” is enough to generate an instant address so you can easily rotate them for each service.
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Mostly its been great. A few sites are blocking it as an alias now. In other words you can’t use it to create the email. I wonder how long it will last.
Yea I did encounter something similar, except that website was only accepting gmail addresses and yahoo if I’m not mistaken. I had been running with it for about 3 years now. Currently I am also trying unbox.at, as someone recommended it and seems quite nice, except that its so easy with relay because I just right click and fill a field. But I will create an addon for unbox.at.
Its been a mix of websites for me. It is clear that some are catching on to mozmail domain being a passthrough.
I have a few domains and can create as many emails as I want so that is my fall back.
I think it is kinda misleading that they advertise the phone number support so strongly on their website, but do not support it yet according to their own site:
If they would already support phone numbers, I would immediately sign up. But for just E-Mail: I can use my E-Mail providers (mailbox.org) option for that. Only benefit is the direct Browser integration.
It does provide the phone number mask, that’s what it means. Nonetheless, I am on the free tier to be honest.
Phone numbers are regional, for what its worth. So you may see it in one region, travel to another and it doesn’t show.
I started using Mozilla Email a while ago, but I prefer SimpleLogin.
It basically has the same features as relay, difference is that relay is integrated in firefox. But yea, SimpleLogin is another good solution.
Can’t recommend https://addy.io/ enough, I have been selfhosting it for some time now and have not had any complaints
Main issue for most users with the selfhosted version is that the ISP might be rotating IP addresses, most might have awful reputation or straight up blocking SMTP ports. I was lucky not to have any of those issues, but I have seen many such complaints. :(
But yea, self hosting is the way if possible, if not, a free services like mozilla’s relay might be the best fit.
I’ve got a cheap VPS to act as a relay with a static, more or less trusted IP address. It just forwards incoming mail to my homelab, and outcoming mail to the recipient. The setup can get pretty complex if you haven’t done this before.
Would probably be a lot easier to just deploy addy to a vps and call it a day
Email Schuld be self hosted on a vps or bar Metall server
Again, if your internet provider doesn’t do its best to prevent you from doing that, which most do.
Am I missing something? Hosting providers like hetzner should never do this?
That being said, email hosting can be difficult, for many reasons, so this is clearly not for everyone
I meant self hosting as in hosting it yourself, at home, on your homelab, with your own network. Residential networks tend to block SMTP ports and IPs usually have horrendous reputation, most being blacklisted.
Hetzner, OVH and other hosting providers do not use residential networking. :)
I seem to have misunderstood you there - for me self hosting includes doing that at a Hoster. It just means that you are the admin and am doing it yourself.
Proton offers that too.
Awesome, had no idea even though one of my main addresses is hosted by them.
There is also an option to use an email provider that offers proper email aliases, like runbox. This way your real email address (login username) may never reach the internet.
I have just discovered unbox.at as well through making this post. Awesome alternatives. Having a look at runbox right now. Thanks!
People tend to use the “+” sign in order to identify if they address was sold, for example signing up with “michael.john+amazon@gmail.com”, now what most do not realize is the fact that when selling data to third parties, most companies parse their email lists and clear our those “+” sign. (Source: I have worked with companies that do that)
same here and it always felt like this useless tidbit was intentionally fed to the public.
It is meant for you to more easily organize your incoming emails than “identifying” which company sold your data.
Im not interested in alias mail services because I do not want to be tied to a provider. I have my own domain that can change to another provider if I need it without issue.
