Brave 1.94 adds Email Aliases, giving users five free forwarding addresses to hide their real email from websites:
Brave, a privacy and security-focused browser, has announced a new feature that will allow users to generate unique email addresses to sign up for online services, and receive emails from those services without revealing their real email address.
The feature, called Email Aliases, has been added to the latest desktop version of the browser, 1.94, and will be coming to mobile soon.
According to Brave, instead of handing over their real email address, users generate a unique alias for each service. For the time being, Brave is "offering everyone the option of five free email aliases," tied to their Brave Account.
[...] The service works by forwarding emails sent to an alias on to the user's real address, without letting the sender see that real address. In the process, Brave acts as a mail server that stores the account email, the aliases, and some information about message delivery.
The company promises that it "doesn't read the contents of emails sent to an alias. We only process emails to perform standard spam and virus filtering."
Since I run my own mail server, I use a special domain and create a unique email address for each vendor I purchase from. It makes it much easier to 1) stop delivery of unwanted marketing email from the vendor, and 2) figure out which vendors are selling my info to 3rd party data brokers. In the latter case I usually stop buying from any vendor who sells my info. What do you do to thwart marketing email and spam?
(Score: 2) by sonamchauhan on Sunday August 30, @03:15AM (6 children)
Just use Gmail's '+' aliasing feature
So billg@gmail.com and billg+random.com.2026@gmail.com both route to billg at Gmail.
(Score: 3, Informative) by sonamchauhan on Sunday August 30, @03:18AM (5 children)
Won't stop a human or LLM figuring out your real address -- but does give you a means to filter email, 'silence' conversations, etc
Note , some sites have wizened to this and disallow registering '+' addresses. But those are the minority.
(Score: 1) by shrewdsheep on Sunday August 30, @09:32AM (4 children)
That's true. But I have not seen it happening in practice. The other option is to buy a domain which usually comes with email. Then use a catch all filter to capture any email addressed to your domain into the mailbox. This gives you arbitrary aliasing which cannot be worked back to any "real" address.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by canopic jug on Sunday August 30, @10:42AM (2 children)
One way to use the plus addresses is to use a separate account and then route the non-plus incoming mail to spam.
Money is not free speech. Elections should not be auctions.
(Score: 1) by wArlOrd on Monday August 31, @05:25PM
Except some sign-ups don't accept a +iffied email as valid.
Yes it wrong, but who is even going to slap their wrist.
(Score: 2) by sonamchauhan on Monday August 31, @09:47PM
That is true. I was coming back to make just this point I'd forgotten to add but you beat me to it
(Score: 2) by number11 on Sunday August 30, @06:07PM
Using a catch-all does work. At least until they/AI figure out that all mail to that domain goes to you.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Frosty Piss on Sunday August 30, @03:18AM (2 children)
But I'd like a nice bullshit-free browser that is... Just a browser, and perhaps one that skips the AI as well.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday August 30, @03:59PM
Though it is a bit more than just a browser, your best option by far is Seamonkey. It also has a very nice nostalgic feel to it
(Score: 2) by cereal_burpist on Tuesday September 01, @03:35AM
(Score: 4, Informative) by canopic jug on Sunday August 30, @10:51AM
Since I run my own mail server, I use a special domain and create a unique email address for each vendor I purchase from.
I used to do that, ages ago when I ran a mail server. One interesting incident was when I went around to all the banks in the capital of where I was staying to look into house loans. I only was in some of the banks for a few minutes if it was clearly a bad deal. In others I was there longer. But at each, I filled out the forms and on each form I gave out a unique address. Some of the addresses ended up with third-party spam within a day or two of filling out the form. I didn't take time to follow up with the police though in retrospect that would have been a good idea.
Money is not free speech. Elections should not be auctions.
(Score: 3, Informative) by The Vocal Minority on Sunday August 30, @12:20PM
https://www.mytrashmailer.com/ [mytrashmailer.com] (not sure this even still works)
(Score: 2) by McD on Sunday August 30, @06:02PM (2 children)
The https://fastmail.com/ [fastmail.com] service has this as a standard feature, their name for it is "masked email." Spin up as many randomly generated aliases as you like for your "real" address, make a note of what each one is for, deactivate them any time...
I use it extensively, and it's great. Fastmail has long been one of the good guys in the email game, and I'm a long-time satisfied customer.
(Gmail was rumored to have this same feature in beta a year ago, not sure what their name for it is...)
(Score: 2) by gawdonblue on Sunday August 30, @08:54PM (1 child)
I use Fastmail as well, but was disappointed to learn that, even though both I and them are Australian, they route my email through servers in the US [fastmail.com].
So much for privacy.
I am looking at other options.
(Score: 2) by McD on Monday August 31, @02:34PM
That's pretty funny.
As an American, I signed up knowing they were an AU company - and I sometimes get dinged for for foreign currency transactions as a result.
But, concerned about connectivity and performance back when I signed up, I was actually relieved to learn their servers were colo'd in the states. A few miles from my own home, in fact, which kinda cracked me up. My email is going down the street, my dollars are going to the other side of the globe. Welcome to the future.
If you're concerned about being "secure in your papers" (as the U.S. founders put it)... well, I'm not sure there's a winning move on that front outside of E2E encryption.