pratik
pratik

How do you use alias in your email account? Do you create for type of accounts (social media, banking, utilities, etc.) I’m tempted to create as many as possible and find out which of them sell my email to marketing companies. But may get unwieldy at my end.

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Burk
Burk

@pratik I only use a few. Examples:

family@domain.com (sends to both my wife and myself)
public@domain.com (used for things like grocery store terminals, other things that i know will spam me but I still need it for some reason)

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pratik
pratik

@Burk Makes sense. So you are not using it to monitor who passes it forward to spammers/marketers? I had hoped to shut down an alias if it go out beyond the sites I had entered it for.

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Burk
Burk

@pratik I think it's a good idea, but seems impossible to track in today's environment.. I just go with delete and move on vs. trying to make it a job.

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jeroensangers
jeroensangers

@pratik I used to have a catch-all email adresss where every email directed to my domain would arrive. For each service I subscribed to I used a unique service@example.com address. That way I could alway track the source of spam and selectively block certain addresses.

In the end I deactivated my catch-all account as I started receiving spam addressed to random addresses. I still remember the hassle of updating all my accounts…

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pratik
pratik

@jeroensangers I guess fighting spam is a lost battle and better left to AI. I can imagine the hassle of changing addresses everywhere would be a pain although 1Password makes it easy to keep track.

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jsonbecker
jsonbecker

@pratik I did this at first, but in the end, I found that powerful search/spam filter systems do a far better job than a system I manage myself. I made a one time change when I went to Fastmail, but that was almost a decade ago and the spam has not grown to unbearable levels since. I think some of this is using a .co domain and some is that the domain I use is not used for any actual web presence.

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jeroensangers
jeroensangers

@pratik I can gladly say I don’t have much of a spam problem nowadays, mostly because of filters trained on my preferences. I had less success with generic IA, mainly because of all the people finding it easier to Mark messages as spam than to unsubscribe.

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mcg
mcg

@pratik Fastmail supports sub/plus addressing. So you don't have to create aliases for everything.

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In reply to
pratik
pratik

@mcg Yes, I just discovered that in Help. That way work better for one-off sites.

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gdp
gdp

@mcg @pratik @jeroensangers You all have me looking into Fastmail. I’m trying to break free from Google and have tried ProtonMail but it wouldn’t recognize my domain for some reason, so I dropped it.

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mcg
mcg

@gpittman Fastmail is a great service and not just for mail. It's calendar and contact services are solid.

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gdp
gdp

@mcg I was interested in ProtonMail for the privacy, but since that service didn’t want to verify my domain, I don’t have anything to lose trying Fastmail. And I’ll be happy to move away from Google.

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czottmann
czottmann

@pratik I'm a Fastmail user, and FM allows the old plus-sign trick, i.e. "me+whatever@domain.tld" is a no-hassle alias of "me@domain.tld". So I used that one for a while. But in the end I didn't really care enough as long as my spam filter kept up.

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philosopher
philosopher

@pratik Hey, for years I've had Fastmail email aliases, which ensured only actual human emails got into my Apple Mail Inbox. I wrote about this. dazne.net/email/ and dazne.net/email-bes...

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philosopher
philosopher

@mcg What is the benefit of that?

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philosopher
philosopher

@gpittman There's also StartMail. www.startmail.com

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mcg
mcg

@rishabh Think of it as a low overhead alias. At the point of creating an account somewhere that wants an email address, you can use an existing "alias+something". I usually use the name of the service or something that lets me know who may have used my address for spam. Downsides are that sometimes sites get email validation wrong and don't think the "+" is valid and should you start getting spam from the address, you have to setup a rule to filter.

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philosopher
philosopher

@mcg Aren’t they smart enough to figure out your email at abc@website.com when you share email as abc+service@website.com?

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mcg
mcg

@rishabh Possibly, but my experience is most do not.

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gdp
gdp

@mcg @rishabh You can alternatively use "something@username.fastmail.com" to avoid the validation issues with using a + symbol. If you use labels instead of folders, this method also automatically labels the message with the "something" label. The other method is supposed to create labels, too, but that didn't work in my experiments.

Fastmail isn't encrypted, and its servers are in the United States. So if I ever commit treason, my emails will be accessible by warrant. So far, that's the only thing I would like to see added; everything else—the interface, the features, the pricing—is really fantastic. Of course, I'm not planning to commit treason and I have nothing to hide, but it's the principle of the matter, especially now that a senator from my own state has filed legislation to outlaw encryption altogether.

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mcg
mcg

@gpittman Didn't know about that method of aliasing. Very nice. I like the idea of encrypted mail systems, but if everyone you're committing treason with isn't using the same service, it's mostly pointless. Better ways to communicate if good privacy/encryption is the goal(like Signal).

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gdp
gdp

@mcg "but if everyone you're committing treason with isn't using the same service, it's mostly pointless"

That's an excellent point that I really keep forgetting about. At least iMessages is encrypted, but if I could convince most of my people to switch to Signal or Telegram, I would. Again, out of principle more than anything.

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philosopher
philosopher

@gpittman If that’s a concern, StartMail is a good option. I think they are based out of Netherlands.

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philosopher
philosopher

@gpittman After using Fastmail for many years, I am switching to HEY and using iCloud as a secondary service.

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gdp
gdp

@rishabh I've only been using Fastmail for a few days, but I like it much more than Google for an email service. @mcg made an excellent point that if my recipients aren't also using an encrypted mail service, it doesn't matter if I do or not. Like I said, I have nothing to hide. I would really just be using encryption because I believe it should be a right and politicians are trying to make it illegal.

I'm about 24 hours into my trial of Hey. At first, I thought it was just a really pretty catch-all service since they currently don't offer custom domains. But the more I use it, the more I like it but I can't articulate why. I might even consider paying before my trial is up.

What made you switch from Fastmail?

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pratik
pratik

@czottmann Thanks. Yes, I may use the plus-forwarding although some sites don't accept that format and also, I don't want too many versions of my email IDs out there (downside to a plus side)

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pratik
pratik

@rishabh Thanks a lot for those article. Have bookmarked to read them later.

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philosopher
philosopher

@pratik Welcome. Let me know if you have any questions.

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philosopher
philosopher

@gpittman Hey Gregory, the reason I switched to HEY is because I believe what they believe. I don't know if it's just me, but as I get older, I strive for simplicity and subtraction.

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philosopher
philosopher

@gpittman I have been a happy user of Fastmail (using Apple Mail) for over 16 years. What I like about HEY's approach is it makes the whole process more human. Apart from that, I like the overall experience and the simplicity of having many of those features in a single package while hiding all of the complexity behind it.

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philosopher
philosopher

@gpittman Plus, I like the idea of having one email address I can use for personal email, email confirmations/receipts, and newsletter, without having to worry about getting unsolicited emails.

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philosopher
philosopher

@gpittman Besides, I was paying $60 a year to Fastmail. I think HEY is totally worth it at $100. Not only did I sign up instantly, but I also secured a HEY address for my nephew.

That said, I don't think HEY is perfect by any means, but I can't help but think it will only get better.

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philosopher
philosopher

@gpittman I think I will write about this on my personal weblog. I have more thoughts on this.

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gdp
gdp

@rishabh I would definitely read that because I’m still on the fence. I’m currently thinking that I will let my Hey trial expire. I just don’t see paying $100 a year plus an additional fee to use a custom domain. But that could change in the next 12 days.

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philosopher
philosopher

@gpittman For me, it comes down to if you believe what they believe (manifesto). Rest is just overthinking.

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philosopher
philosopher

@gpittman Cool. Let me know if you sign up (or not).

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