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Advice: Never use your ISP provided email address
tinjaw:
In general, I believe that everybody should have their own domain name. It is so cheap as to be *more* costly *not* to have your own domain when you consider the hassles involved in *not* having one. For example, if you register a domain name with GoDaddy you get everything you need to insure that www.yourdomain.tld will always point to your website no matter where it is and that [email protected] will always be your email address. You will never again have to worry about giving people yet another "change of address" for your website or email address.
jojo99:
That's the beauty of the method I use. Nobody sees the name+xyz@gmail account. In fact, they don't see Gmail at all. They see [email protected] which is forwarded to [email protected] behind the scenes.
And with my host's control panel, it's not hard to mass edit all my forward-only e-mail accounts to change the forwarding address if my Gmail account finally is overrun with spam.
But let's put it this way: I've been using this method with my current Gmail account, which I've had for over two years now, and the only spam I ever get is an occasional newsletter from Xara, who just won't remove me from their mailing list.
-Deozaan (July 20, 2008, 08:18 PM)
--- End quote ---
But what do you do if you DID want to reply to the sender (it wasn't spam)? Then they would know your address.
That is why I use www.spamex.com which for $10/year gives me 500 disposable addresses. The emails are all forwarded to a real email address somewhere. And if I reply to someone, they massage the header, so the addresses I reply from doesn't show up. I can also send attachments up to 500k. I have a bookmarklet on my links bar for when I want to bring up spamex and create a new address or access the interface. Since the domain name contains the word spam, I have had some occasional problems with some ISP's refusing to forward mail to it. Which is why spamex also allows the use of the xemaps.com name (spamex backwards) :) I use spamex for all forum registrations, newsletters, etc.
I also have my own domain name where I have 2 addresses that goes to Outlook. Only very trustworthy friends/people/companies get these addresses. I hosted this through www.addaction.com because I can use my own domain name directly in outlook (send/receive) or I can use their email servers (which is what I use since they allow me to use an encrypted connection, port 995).
I have other email accounts also, such as 2 gmail accounts (Gmail has been very reliable but since Google scans all email looking for keywords to generate advertising for you, one wonders just how secure gmail really is), a Yahoo account (never use, always full of spam), an inbox.com account (hardly use but can send 50mb attachments), mail.com (hardly use) and an account at safe-mail.net (this is where spamex feeds to. This account is always HTTPS but the free version only provides 3mb of storage. However, I've gotten maybe 3 spam emails here in maybe 4 years of use). Probably a few others lying around also...
Deozaan:
That's the beauty of the method I use. Nobody sees the name+xyz@gmail account. In fact, they don't see Gmail at all. They see [email protected] which is forwarded to [email protected] behind the scenes.
And with my host's control panel, it's not hard to mass edit all my forward-only e-mail accounts to change the forwarding address if my Gmail account finally is overrun with spam.
But let's put it this way: I've been using this method with my current Gmail account, which I've had for over two years now, and the only spam I ever get is an occasional newsletter from Xara, who just won't remove me from their mailing list.
-Deozaan (July 20, 2008, 08:18 PM)
--- End quote ---
But what do you do if you DID want to reply to the sender (it wasn't spam)? Then they would know your address.
-jojo99 (August 15, 2008, 04:46 AM)
--- End quote ---
Gmail lets you set up other accounts (Settings -> Accounts) to send mail as, and you can automatically have it use those accounts as the reply-to addresses for any e-mail sent to those addresses. Though you are limited to somewhere around 8 "accounts."
I don't usually reply to most of the mail I use this method for (signing up at websites that require e-mail addresses, etc.) but I'm currently using this method for my college e-mail address since it's so convoluted and long. Something like firstnamelastname(at)randomletter.college.edu. So I had to go into my college e-mail account and forward it all to my Gmail account, and I can reply using Gmail and they still think I'm in the stupid university web mail.
An even though I'm taking the time to use all these precautions with my own domain and Gmail, I have received, like you, perhaps 5 or less spams to this Gmail account since I started using it in 2006. I've been very careful with this account in the first place, not using it to sign up at dubious looking sites, but if I should accidentally let my e-mail address out to a spammer, I'll more than likely be able to just disable that single account on my domain and continue to be spam free once more.
Tinman57:
I disagree. ;D Gmail, Yahoo, etc, those "free" email accounts aren't nearly as secure as your ISP, not to mention every email you send out has ads injected into them and are tracked. I've been reading for months about Google's privacy invasions through Gmail and their IE/Firefox add-ons. Did anyone notice that Google just bought the largest ad-server/tracker in the world, ie: DoubleClick? It's been heavily incorporated into Gmail. Now isn't that special?
Plus, most ISP's provide at least 5 email accounts, some up to 15. Even if you only use one (as I), you can change any of your email addresses on-line, anytime you like.
I've been using the same ISP email address for over 12 years now, and my ISP has been bought out 4 times since I first started.
The free email outfits bounce a lot of good emails, their anti-spam options (if any) aren't as configurable as most ISP's.
And as for customer service, do you have a local or toll-free number to call and talk to a technician about any problems you may have with the free services? I do!
What it boils down to is those "free" email accounts aren't so free when you consider the injected ads and privacy issues. I think I'll stick with my ISP email address...... ;)
housetier:
hmm now when I send email from gmail to one of my other email accounts I do not see any injections of ads.
My internet is the best after all.
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