Reducing SPAM: Registering with a site or forum using a temporary fake email

[The Jackal]

Apologies in advance if you know this already but for those not in the know ...

This is prolly old news too but I only came across it a few weeks back !
This is because I had been creating virtual email addresses from my domains when registering with sites been doing that for years but this way is much neater

We all know that when registering with a site our email addresses somehow despite assurances still gets onto a spammers list.

A few weeks back I came across several plugins for firefox that allow you to create a temporary inbox where the registration site mails your activation code... Once activated you can discard the temporary email or even forward it to your real email address.

Here are some plugins : I personally cant remember the one I used but it was downloaded from mozilla extensions.

https://addons.mozilla.org/firefox/2650/

https://addons.mozilla.org/firefox/1813/

[AntiSilence]

Good find.

[Druchii]

Also, opening mailinator.com in a sidebar would have roughly the same effect

EDIT: Could someone shorten the threads title? Makes it a nightmare to reply to

[MovedGoalPosts]

Hmm, this may well work, however temporary email addresses could cause you, the user, issues later. If an email is issued from the site, perhaps as a requested response to a thread subscription on a forum, you won't get it, defeating that functionality. If a website starts to get a few bounced emails comng back to it, some admin might even start to look for the associated account and censure it.

---------- Post added at 14:12 ---------- Previous post was at 14:10 ----------

NB, I've changed the thread title, was just a tad too long for the Quick Reply functions.

[The Jackal]

Originally Posted by Rob C

Hmm, this may well work, however temporary email addresses could cause you, the user, issues later. If an email is issued from the site, perhaps as a requested response to a thread subscription on a forum, you won't get it, defeating that functionality. If a website starts to get a few bounced emails comng back to it, some admin might even start to look for the associated account and censure it.

Hence the forward facility from the 'fake mail provider'.

'original source' -> 'fake mail' -> your inbox

Monitor incoming mail from 'fake mail provider' declare it all spam with your spamfilter if you see spam coming from it.

Turn off spam filter when you want to recieve emails alerts from the 'original source' eg reset password etc etc

This all depends of whether 'fake mail provider' doesn't go bust in a few years.

---------- Post added at 14:16 ---------- Previous post was at 14:15 ----------

Originally Posted by Rob C

NB, I've changed the thread title, was just a tad too long for the Quick Reply functions.

Good point I just ran into the same problem thanks

[altis]

I use http://www.mailinator.com/ too