I’ve been looking at using email aliases services, and right now I’m thinking of using Simplelogin for all my online accounts and accounts where I can change my email easily, and getting my own domain to share with people and where I can’t easily update my email. It seems like I shouldn’t use my own domain for online services because it would be unique and can be tracked.

I did lots of reading about this and am still wondering why someone would want to opt for catch-all domains over aliases. Catch-alls seem highly susceptible to spam and while I haven’t actually done any email aliasing yet, it doesn’t seem to take much effort to make a new alias if you have a plan with unlimited aliases.

  • devtoi@feddit.nu
    7·
    2 days ago

    I have basically the same thoughts as you. The reasons I can think of is:

    • Convenience (but SL is pretty convenient)
    • Less of a lock-in to one vendor.
    • Avoiding filters on sites not allowing aliasing domains (often incorrectly under the label “temporary email addresses”)
  • lemmyreader@lemmy.mlEnglish
    3·
    2 days ago

    I did lots of reading about this and am still wondering why someone would want to opt for catch-all domains over aliases. Catch-alls seem highly susceptible to spam and while I haven’t actually done any email aliasing yet,

    I’m using catch-all since years and no spammer has ever made up a new email alias to spam me.

    it doesn’t seem to take much effort to make a new alias if you have a plan with unlimited aliases.

    That depends. The moment you are in a shop without your phone/email and they really want an email address you can simply write down their_company_name@your_email_domain_name for them without having to compromise anything.

  • WhatAmLemmy@lemmy.worldEnglish
    4·
    2 days ago

    Custom domains mean that if the alias provider enshittifies, you can switch to any other provider near-instantly. As long as you never use the domains to host illegal or dodgy shit it’s extremely unlikely you’ll ever lose them — far less likely than losing a gmail or whatever.

    With SL you can avoid spam by using the “beta” (been beta for 3+ years lol) “auto create” option instead of a catch-all, meaning that you can direct emails to different inboxes (or do nothing) based on specific regex strings you control — up to 100 of them. I had a catch-all regex (.*) as my # 100 and it took 2 years to receive catch-all fishing spam. Then I removed it and now have only random strings (e.g. .*fgyu.*) so new emails must have them if they want to get somewhere. Everything else bounces. All previous emails continue to work until you disable them individually.

    I use a mix:

    • SL-domains: anything I don’t give a shit about.
    • Non-PII domain: anything I would want to persist if I changed provider, but don’t need my identity, or can give out a unique email in-person.
    • PII-domain: banks and all other services tied to my identity.
    • Top-Secret-PII-domain: critical services that could compromise all others (password manager, email/OS accounts, domain name registrar).
  • explore_broaden@midwest.social
    2·
    2 days ago

    Part of the reason I prefer having a catch-all on my own domain is that I can change providers without changing any email addresses. For example at the moment I run my own server, but in the future if that becomes too time consuming I can easily start paying for a service.

    ETA: also I’ve never gotten any spam to a email I haven’t given out, people don’t really send emails to random names at a domain as far as I can tell

    • Link@rentadrunk.org
      3·
      2 days ago

      This depends if you have a website on your domain and it appears on search engines. I do and had to modify Rspamd as bots were spamming addresses like abuse@ and other dictionary words.

          • explore_broaden@midwest.social
            1·
            2 days ago

            Yes, exactly. I haven’t really had any issues with any website taking the email, some people do actually have subdomains in an email for work, I know some of my teachers in school had an email like [email protected].

            It also has the advantage of letting you have multiple users on your server, a couple of my family members also have their own subdomain catch-all that redirects to their own base domain address.

  • pipariturbiini@sopuli.xyz
    2·
    2 days ago

    Both are fine choices depending on your requirements. The thing with external alias services, you are not in control of the addresses/domain. Catch-all addresses are essentially aliases you manage, but something like Simplelogin does have the benefit of hiding your domain name.

    Spam is not a big deal on catch-all. A couple of times a year I do get a spam mail to some arbirtary address, but that’s more or less it.

    • Joël de Bruijn@lemmy.ml
      1·
      2 days ago

      Same experience

      Oh , that’s cute this spammer thinks there must be an [email protected] etc

      Only other downside I could think if is when my catch all cant be used to send a mail or reply.

      So I do use them a lot for suppliers en services, but for registering initially and password reset. But I can’t use it to contact support by mail.

      Mostly I rely on forms or self service portals when I need it as a customer.

      • pipariturbiini@sopuli.xyz
        3·
        1 day ago

        Only other downside I could think if is when my catch all cant be used to send a mail or reply.

        On Protonmail, I just create a new address if I need to send email from that address. Afterwards I just delete it, freeing up the address slot.

  • Midnight1938@reddthat.com
    1·
    2 days ago

    What i wanna know is why when ive linked my domaie email to outlook, does it send my emails into people’s spam box