DeGoogle Yourself

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E-mail forwarding (addy.io)

submitted 18 hours ago* (last edited 18 hours ago) by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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Hi,

I know this is not exactly a pure "degoogle" but as many members of this community are looking for a gmail replacement I would like to recommend an anonymous mail forwarding service like https://addy.io/. I would also like to hear your opinions on this or several similar services.

In case you don't know what it does here is my short explanation: It is an email forwarding service. So basically you sign up with your (new non gmail) email address. Whenever you sign up for something you would normally use your email you use a new Addy.io mail instead. This works on the fly without having to login to Addy.io beforehand or even having to use a plugin or app. Let's say I would want to sign up for Lemmy I would just type "lemmy@my_name.addy.io" in the email form. Now all mails to this address get forwarded to my real email address without Lemmy knowing it. I think this has a lot of benefits:

Additional privacy: the service I sign up to doesn't know my mail. In case it gets hacked it is more difficult to figure out where else I signed up.
Phishing and spam protection: Mail from "my bank" to my Lemmy address saying I should change my password. I don't think so. But now I know they got hacked or sold my data and I can just delete the alias.
switching mails: let's say you just degoogled your mail but now it turns out the CEO of the new mail provider is a dick. Switching you mail on all the services and news letters you use again? I don't think so. Just change one mail in your forwarding service and your good to go

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[–] [email protected] 5 points 16 hours ago

My opinions are likely in accord with information available at https://www.privacyguides.org/en/email-aliasing/

[–] [email protected] 2 points 16 hours ago (1 children)

Good if you selfhost, but on their site, they'll ban you if you create multiple accounts for the same website. How many? we don't know, but anonymous, it is not. They're scanning emails, just like Google.

I would want to sign up for Lemmy I would just type "lemmy@my_name.addy.io" in the email form. Now all mails to this address get forwarded to my real email address without Lemmy knowing it. I think this has a lot of benefits

All the spammers need to do is use your @my-name.addy.io to check where else you've signed up (through hacked data sets) or send more spam. And arent the emails you can forward to very limited (1 I think?). That just beats the purpose of aliases.

Hmm after reading through the post, are you posting this because you just learned about it or this is their marketing speaking?

So just use a cheap custom domain with wildcard email forwarding or services that have conditional forwarding instead of adding 1 more layer that could fail you.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 13 hours ago (1 children)

All the spammers need to do is use your @my-name.addy.io to check where else you've signed up (through hacked data sets) or send more spam. And arent the emails you can forward to very limited (1 I think?). That just beats the purpose of aliases.

True that could happen. However you can use a shared domain to avoid this. It is one more click to generate a new mail address if you think it is worth eliminating that risk.
I don't know where you get the 1 reply limit from. Can't find that on their website and definitely wrong for subscribers.

Hmm after reading through the post, are you posting this because you just learned about it or this is their marketing speaking?

Definitely not affiliated with them in any way. Just a happy customer and though others might be profiting as well.

So just use a cheap custom domain with wildcard email forwarding or services that have conditional forwarding instead of adding 1 more layer that could fail you

Sure you could do that. But I am sure that 99.9% of people that use gmail can't and won't.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 13 hours ago

Why would you not use a custom domain?

[–] [email protected] 2 points 17 hours ago (4 children)

What's the advantage over a duck.com alias? I think 10MB monthly bandwidth might be limiting if you receive lots of spam, and might block you from receiving actual important email. I'd be afraid to use their free tier. Duck on the other hand doesn't seem to have a bandwidth limit, and it's just free.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 17 hours ago

I wonder whats the catch. I have a hard time accepting some company would provide such a service for free no limits (unless its a non-profit run through donations or similar).

[–] [email protected] 2 points 16 hours ago

I trust a service with a paid plan much more than a completely free service.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 17 hours ago

I don't know about any usability dis-/advantages, as this is the only service I have tested. Is duck.com open source? Addy.io is and has an option to self host. And it is not US based. But for most users this might not be important.

I have about 250 aliases and I think I never reacht the 10mb limit. But I also pay for the ultimate subscription so I wouldn't necessarily notice if I did.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 17 hours ago

I used their free tier for a year before upgrading (1€ is really not a lot). 10MB is more than enough. It only counts towards forwarded Emails and not the spam that's blockef.