Whatever

Are you tired of signing up for things online then getting spam galore? Now there’s a way to sign up for services (well, there’s been a way for a long time but look – I’m going to tell you about it) that require a valid email address without giving yours up!

If you must put in your email address to sign up for something, just put in whatever@mailinator.com . . . the “whatever” part you can fill in with whatever you want – really. Say you want to put “eric” in the “whatever” spot. Here’s how you’d do it.

1. sign up for the service you want
2. input “eric@mailinator.com”
3. go to http://mailinator.com to check your email
4. sign in using the name you just created (no password needed!)
5. check your email
6. that’s it!

Mailinator automatically deletes the email a little while later.

You might be wondering, “Well, if there’s no password can’t anyone sign in to mailinator to check my mail?” and the answer to that carefully thought out question is a resounding, “YES!” That’s why it’s a good idea to pick a weird name when signing up (probably “eric” wasn’t a real good choice) like billybobthebooger or something a bit abnormal. Oh, by the way, you can’t respond with this email service. But who wants to respond to spammers anyway?

Will mailinator solve all your spam problems? Of course not. But it’s a really nice way to reduce the amount of spam you get.

Are there other choices out there that do the same thing? Yes, lots. I’ll list a couple for you.

http://dodgit.com/
http://www.pookmail.com/
http://10minutemail.com/ (email is cleared after ten minutes but with this one you can reply).

Enjoy!

Stumble it!

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