Do you use your own e-mail for online shopping or logging into services? Stop doing so, as it may make you a target of criminals and spammers.
Every month you read about some website that has been hacked and user data stolen. Chances are that your e-mail address has already been stolen once, so now you are constantly receiving spam messages. Fortunately, there is a solution.
Of course, you can create an alternative (Gmail) email address for each company, but managing dozens of addresses yourself is not easy. It can be much simpler!
Hiding your email is a good idea
Spam is one of the biggest annoyances if you want to read emails. Fortunately, your spam filter takes out most of it. Yet there is an even bigger threat: phishing. Through a fake e-mail, cyber criminals try to capture even more data or try to get you to transfer money to them. This is a growing danger, because these messages are increasingly difficult to distinguish from the real thing.
The criminals get your e-mail address because it was captured in a hack of a website, company or institution. Because you use the same address everywhere, they therefore always know how to find you digitally, and from that point on, all spam and phishing is actually unavoidable. Let alone the information they captured in the actual hack.
Mail on your iPhone. (Image: Brian Tromp / Unsplash)
Still, there is a way to surf the Internet more securely. Of course, a good password manager is a good step so that each password is different. That way, with the e-mail address and password you use on one site, they can’t log into another. So it’s already a pretty well-known way to protect your account.
Yet there is also another way. Not only can your password be different on each site, but also your e-mail address. And that’s even though you just use your own e-mail. Sounds crazy? We’ll explain exactly how it works.
Here’s how to hide your email address
There are several services that create special email aliases for you. These are not real e-mail accounts that require you to create a completely new e-mail address, but are aliases to which companies and institutions send their e-mails. These are then forwarded by the service to your real e-mail.
So the shop or institution does not actually know your email address. Should this data be captured by a hack, your e-mail address is not traceable to you. So it gives you an extra layer of privacy.
Google’s Gmail. (Image: Unsplash/Justin Morgan)
In addition, it is also possible to send emails using that alias. And when you reply to an email from your inbox, your alias is also used instead of your real address. So your identity remains hidden.
Of course, it’s nice that hackers thus have no use for that e-mail address at all, but it also has other advantages. Has your e-mail address been sold and are you hit by a lot of spam? Then you can very easily block and delete the alias in question. You will not receive any more spam in your mailbox.
With so many aliases it can be difficult to remember which one you use for a particular site. Fortunately, this data is easy to combine with a password manager. This stores your e-mail address or username from each site separately. That way, all you have to do is log in through your password manager.
These are the best providers
Still, there is a real drawback. If a provider quits, you may lose all your e-mail aliases. However, that includes the provider of your e-mail address, for example, Gmail. Probably before a shutdown you will just get a notice allowing you to update it.
Listen to Freakin’ Nerds
WANT editor-in-chief Mark Hofman celebrates in Apple Park not only the 4 million followers of Niels van Straaten (Appledsign), but also the arrival of Apple Intelligence. Is that something to be excited about, how does it work and is it actually safe?
Still, that’s why you want to use this service from a big or better-known party. Fortunately, you can. Apple is perhaps the best known. Here you can simply hide your e-mail via the iCloud keychain. When you get to a new site where you create an account and enter an e-mail address, you will see the suggestion.
Fortunately, there are other services that do the same thing. DuckDuckGo Email Protection is one of our favorites. The search engine that values privacy also offers a simple and free service. This also includes a simple dashboard to easily manage all your aliases.
If you use Firefox as your browser, you can also enable Firefox Relay. This one has both a free and paid subscription. Another well-known provider is Proton Mail, but this e-mail service is paid. Do you prefer an open source service? Then AnonAndy is an option with free and paid subscriptions. You can use e-mail aliases by installing a browser extension.
