Anybody Using an Alternative ID Email Address?

Qs Laptop

Qs Laptop

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I received an offer to sign up for an alternative email address via my VPN provider, SurfShark. Alternative email addresses are "fake" email addresses that you would use to hide your real ID. So, for example, you are signing up for a website and you don't want to use your real name and email address, you would use this alternative email address instead. Instead of using your real name and email address, i.e. John Smith and johnsmith@gmail.com you would create a fake name and email, i.e. Johnny Smithton and johnnysmithton@faux.com. Then, after signing up on a website using your fake name if you receive emails sent to johnnysmithton@faux.com you can decide which one of them are worth forwarding to your real email address.

You could potentially avoid a lot of spam and phishing attempts with this sort of a system.

Here's a video explainer:

I can see a lot of advantages to using this service but also some disadvantages. Anybody using something like this and want to share your experiences?
 
I've used free temporary emails with varying results. Had thought that I bookmarked some of the websites I've used for this purpose but can't find the bookmarks. Some sites that you want to give a fake email address are onto this and don't allow domains of known fake email sites.

If I go to a place that I know I don't want them to have my email, then I go to the effort of creating a temporary email. But most times I use a non-temporary email and rely on my mail readers anti spam as easier for to mark the future emails as spam and let the email program do it's work than to go the fake email route. All a personal preference I guess.
 
I'm not sure how this is any different than having more than one gmail (or other provider) account. I have 3 or 4 gmail accounts -- my primary account and then others that I use for specific purposes. One of those accounts is one that I use on almost all websites where I don't care if they spam me to death. I've been doing this for many years.
 
PaunchyPirate said:
I'm not sure how this is any different than having more than one gmail (or other provider) account. I have 3 or 4 gmail accounts -- my primary account and then others that I use for specific purposes. One of those accounts is one that I use on almost all websites where I don't care if they spam me to death. I've been doing this for many years
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I like this approach more that what I'm doing. Think I will start doing this instead. Even create a very simple email name like "makemyday" or something for easy recall ;) .
 
PaunchyPirate said:
I'm not sure how this is any different than having more than one gmail (or other provider) account. I have 3 or 4 gmail accounts -- my primary account and then others that I use for specific purposes. One of those accounts is one that I use on almost all websites where I don't care if they spam me to death. I've been doing this for many years.
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Similar to what I've done for years but use an old yahoo email account rather than providing my primary gmail.
 
Apple provides this option to hide your real email in some cases. Unique to the recipient. You don’t even see what it is.

I’ve had a handful of fake emails for a long time. We have our own domain and use a mail service provider.
 
PaunchyPirate said:
I'm not sure how this is any different than having more than one gmail (or other provider) account. I have 3 or 4 gmail accounts -- my primary account and then others that I use for specific purposes. One of those accounts is one that I use on almost all websites where I don't care if they spam me to death. I've been doing this for many years.
Click to expand...

I do this with my old AOL account.

BTW, nothing says "you're a boomer" like using an AOL account. LOL!
 
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There are so many free e-mail options. I'm not sure why anyone would offer a "service" like this, since you can do it yourself a thousand different ways.

I often set up a new "throw-away" account for a specific purpose. For example, when I was looking at real estate a lot of the web sites wanted my e-mail address. So I created a GMail account for that purpose. Now I'll re-use it for other sites I don't care to share my real account with. When it gets too badly overrun with spam, I'll just start a new one. I keep a few old accounts around for testing and for going onto social media sites anonymously. It's always handy to have these "burner" accounts.
 
I still have and use old @yahoo.com email addresses for situations the OP described.
 
I have 3 email addresses, I use 2 of them as throwaways.
 
I have a few different email accounts, and a couple of them allow me to add/remove aliases and another account allows me to add an extension to the address as a form of alias. I think Comcast provides me an email address that I've never even used.
 
It's helpful for spam control. Last I checked, one account had received and auto-discarded over 100,000 spams. For a brief email need, yopmail.com is interesting in that no password is required, you simply create an obscure email name. Yes, anyone who happens to enter that name can see the inbox, but that box is routinely auto-emptied.
 
DH was getting a lot of extra spam recently and finally figured out that almost all of it was being sent to his old facebook email address (only used for that). He changed that email address. He hardly uses that account.
 
PaunchyPirate said:
I'm not sure how this is any different than having more than one gmail (or other provider) account. I have 3 or 4 gmail accounts -- my primary account and then others that I use for specific purposes. One of those accounts is one that I use on almost all websites where I don't care if they spam me to death. I've been doing this for many years.
Click to expand...
Exactly what I do.

Interesting is that I have one email that I only use for Facebook. I never get any spam on that one. I get a ton of notifications from FB (it’s so & so’s birthday. . . ) but no spam.
 
GenXguy said:
I think Comcast provides me an email address that I've never even used.
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Comcast residential internet provides a primary email with the account and then up to 6 secondary emails. I use the primary email for friends and family.

I then have several secondary email addresses that I use to register on websites and organize by importance to me (e.g. email1 for my important bank, financial and utility accounts, email2 for subscriptions and general purchases, email3 for one-time usage, email4 my wife uses for her subscriptions and general purchases, etc.).
 
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I have 5, one for friends/family, one for financial/government, one for sites with my credit card, one for most other web sites and last one for situations that doesn’t fit into 4. I always use email servers with very good spam filtering and forward email from 2 through 4 to my primary email. I assume sites will be hacked and this lessons the chance that my first two emails will be exposed,
 
I use a program (on the PC) called Mailwasher. Mail is downloaded into that 1st and then it gets rid of the SPAM. You can identify friends and add your own filters. You can also read the email in Mailwasher and reply from there if you want or download it to reply.
 
MdaPetralia said:
Comcast residential internet provides a primary email with the account and then up to 6 secondary emails. I use the primary email for friends and family.
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When I switched to Comcast, I also had to change from my primary email address because it was through my old local provider, so I decided to go gmail as my primary account in case I wasn't with Comcast long term and ended up in the same situation again. I can change providers and still use my existing gmail and hotmail/outlook accounts.
 
MdaPetralia said:
Note some ISP's (Xfinity/Comcast being one of them) allow you to keep using your email addresses after you disconnect service.

Use Xfinity Email if you've disconnected your service
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Looks like they require you to access it via the website at least once every 9 months to keep it.

My old provider was bad. Not only did they take away my email account, but when someone emails it, it doesn't send a non-delivery message. I've probably had people email over the last few years to that address that don't know I never received it.
 
There's this too for those of us with a gmail account (everyone?):

eit.ces.ncsu.edu

Gmail Plus Addressing: The Hidden Feature that Can Help You Get More Out of Your Inbox

Gmail offers a wide range of features and tools that make it easy for you to manage your email, stay organized, and get more done. However, did you know that Gmail also offers a hidden feature called “plus addressing”? Plus addressing is a simple but powerful tool that can help you get even more...
eit.ces.ncsu.edu eit.ces.ncsu.edu
 
The other thing you can do with GMail is put a dot anywhere in the account.

So, your JohnDoe @ gmail account will get mail sent to John.Doe or even joh.ndoe.
 
I've got hundreds of email addresses. They all go through spamgourmet and end-up in my regular inbox. Why bother, if they all get forwarded? Because I can turn any of them off at will.

When a web site wants an email address, I make a new email address that identifies the web site. Spamgourmet forwards the confirmation email and I'm on their site. If they loose control of their email addresses, I turn off that address.

There have been 10 or 15 cases in the last decade where it's become obvious that a specific web site was hacked and I started getting spam on an exclusive email address. The most recent was TAP (Air Portugal).

The bad news is that the various domains in use with SpamGourmet have been black listed, so when you try to sign up, is basically says "you can't use a throw-away address." Another "feature" is that you get 10 emails delivered on one address, then it will discard all future emails unless you go in and give it more life (up to 20 at a time). Spamgourmet appends "1 of 10" to the subject line, and finally"last one", so you can switch it to your "real" email, reset the count, or just let the emails get "eaten".
 
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