LPT: If a site doesn't accept alias sites like Simplelogin, create the account with a disposable email site then change it to your alias
I just did this on a website that said my Simplelogin alias isn't allowed for signup, but changed it successfully after the fact from a disposable email.
23 replies
I just have my own domain (and mail server). If you don’t want to host a mail server (and you shouldn’t), you can get a mail forwarding service to forward all *@domain.tld emails to your email
This is a problem in the above contexts. Services have started blocking signups with:
"Please use a popular email provider like Gmail or..."
Had this happen on my custom domain recently. Chose to not use that service, as others should do, too.
Unless it’s a necessary service I would decline to use the service.
Please name the service
I have so far never encountered this. Which services would this be?
I had that happen once, but I found that it worked with duckduckgo's email aliases forwarded to my own domain's email.
Why? I always wanted one but never been able to do it
It's a lot of work to keep the spammers out and make sure gmail, etc. will accept your messages and not mark them as spam. A brand-new mail system with no history looks a lot like a new spam operation to them.
True. Glad I didn't continue with it, thanks!
Google is easy. Microsoft is a PAIN
Meg, not that difficult really. There are Docker based services that do it all self-contained.
Why have you never been able to do it? I set up a full mail system years ago on a Xen/Linux VPS with stuff like Postfix, maildrop, Courier IMAP, a custom set of MySQL tables for aliases and such, and at one point migrated my TLS from CACert to LetsEncrypt. I enjoyed some aspects of the huge pain in the ass that all of that was, and having it work nicely was great. Spinning up a new email alias was easy and free, so I created a new one for damn near every site I interacted with, which later turned into a form of lock in having to continue running my server.
The continual server maintenance was a pain in the ass, requiring me to remember in substantial detail how it all worked so that I could appropriately integrate new things I had to learn like SPF and DMARC. I’m glad to have had some detailed sysadmin experience, but I was so glad in the end to finally migrate away from all that and just pay Fastmail instead.
I still have nearly the same flexibility with Fastmail and my custom domains, but they’re the ones that need to do all the maintenance. I can’t scale across unlimited domains for the same zero marginal cost, but I can make it work for a reasonable price with a few domains and scale arbitrarily within that. I’m sure there are other hosts out there that do a similarly good job, and Fastmail hasn’t been without its own troubles, but it’s been a net win for me.
I don’t recommend running your own server. I won’t do it again. I do recommend building an army of custom aliases all at your own custom domain(s).
Oh, no, I have my own domain. I chose not to use the service that wouldn't accept it.
What disposable email address provider is accepted at sites that reject SimpleLogin?
My experience has been that certain vanity TLDs are not accepted, so if youre using a personal domain on simple login and it has a TLD like .email or .ninja, there's a chance it'll be rejected while temporary email with a .com TLD will skirt by.
I got GitHub destroying 2 accounts of mine after doing something very similar. First try I thought it was a mistake. Second time i realised I was actually getting caught by some internal AI.
Could you appeal it and offer to change the email to a non-banned domain? Because that's quite severe, your GH account has all your repos, issues, and repo forum posts.
I tried, they answered something along the lines of "this account is unrecoverable due to guidelines blablabla". I had nothing, maybe a couple of issues in some repos, nothing illegal at all.
I pay for proton plus in my own domain and have them linked together so that I can just use whatever email address at my domain I wish and can easily switch email providers if I decide to. The hardest part was setting up the DNS records properly for DMark and shit.
Further tip; Simple Login offers premium domains that aren't listed and therefore have less negative reputation; as well as offering "Subdomains".
I urge anyone who feels they can afford to pay for what SimpleLogin can offer to do so for those features; they've given me a pretty flexible subdomain which I use frequently. Wildcards are another helpful feature; particularly for subdomains; which allows you to "make up email addresses" on the fly and have them routed appropriately depending on whatever keywords you include.
if you use proton pass, you may also set a default alias domain there
I bought a domain for $15/year that I use in these cases. It has the added benefit of being able to manage it through the simplelogin dashboard.
I do the same but it doesn't always work. I forget which site it was but there was one I ran into that checked the dns records. It blocked any domain that points to simple login servers.
Sadly privacy is inconvenient. That's the world we live in.