Catch-all vs alias reddit / selfhosted ---------------------------------------------------------------------- TuhanaPF · 2023-12-04 00:03 From the outset, I'll say I already understand the benefits of an alias over a catch-all e-mail address. It prevents fingerprinting, it prevents others guessing common email addresses: ("facebook@mydomain.com" etc...). The privacy side isn't my main goal here. I'm more focused on being able to pack up my email address and take it with me if I'm not happy with the service I'm using. I use fastmail right now with my own domain, and if I don't like them anymore, I can just go elsewhere. I've been using firefox relay, as it was my first experience with email aliasing before I ever heard of simplelogin. If I ever don't like something Mozilla does, I'll have to go through every alias and change it to someone else like simplelogin. With a catch-all, that's not a problem. I just disconnect my domain from fastmail, and attach it elsewhere, no problem. I'm aware you can self-host simplelogin, but does this mean you have to use your own domain, and are therefore subject to fingerprinting? And you're subject to the same issue, if simplelogin is gone, you've got to swap all your e-mail addresses. Right now I'm sort of half aliasing, and half doing catch-all. Time I settled on what works right, but I need a bit of information to help that. Appreciate any advice people have. So I'm curious: 1. If you use aliasing, what are your plans if your alias provider goes down or you just want to move away from them? 2. For those that mention the risk of a spammer abusing your catch- all, has anyone had this happen before? ---------------------------------------------------------------------- GolemancerVekk · 2023-12-04 18:17 What problem are you trying to solve? Do you just want to prevent spam or are you trying to remain anonymous? If you're trying to remain anonymous then you're better off using one of the Big Email services like Yahoo or Gmail. If you're just trying to prevent spam then just use your own domain and host your email with any provider that offers unlimited aliases and/or catch-all. Whenever you want to switch to another one it's as simple as updating your DNS records. > For those that mention the risk of a spammer abusing your catch-all, has anyone had this happen before? Spammers don't target domains anymore. They don't need to. They can buy a list of a few million known-valid addresses for a few bucks, they feed that into their bulk emailer and that's it. The only way you can get targeted with a catch-all is if someone who knows your domain *and* that you have a catch-all makes up a few addresses and subscribes them to some crap. But that's probably not going to happen, and if it does it's simple to block those few addresses (or, even easier, block the sender they subscribed you to). The only real issue with catch-all or wildcard aliases is that when one address starts getting spam you have to add a block rule. While for fixed aliases it's the other way around, you remove the alias and let the messages to it fall to a "block by default" rule. There are pros and cons to each approach. Purists claim that you should be using the latter method, that catch-all + explicit blocks is dirty and yucky and that aliases + default block is nice and healthy. But as long as your provider doesn't mind I think you can do either; you would need quite a large block list before it starts becoming a problem. > If you use aliasing, what are your plans if your alias provider goes down or you just want to move away from them? Like I said, if you use your own domain it's as simple as updating a few DNS records and you can be up and running with a new provider as fast as 15 minutes. It doesn't have to be a catch-all to be that easy; most decent providers I've seen let you export and import aliases either as text or CSV. With wildcard aliases it's a bit more tricky because not all providers offer them so I guess if you get into the habit of using them it can be a problem finding another provider with this feature. But it's very addictive when you have it and it works amazingly well against spam. [I've written more about them here.](https://www.reddit.com/r/selfhost ed/comments/176bzb3/email_aliasesaccounts/k4lgj0h/). Two reliable providers that offer them are Gandi.net and Migadu.com. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- TuhanaPF · 2023-12-04 19:10 The problem I want to solve is not being tied to a company. By using my own domain name, it means that if I don't like what an email provider is doing, I can pack up my domain name, and attach it to another provider and not have to give everyone a new email address. >The only way you can get targeted with a catch-all is if someone who knows your domain and that you have a catch-all makes up a few addresses and subscribes them to some crap. But that's probably not going to happen, and if it does it's simple to block those few addresses (or, even easier, block the sender they subscribed you to). This is what I figured, and what I'm hoping for. >most decent providers I've seen let you export and import aliases either as text or CSV. How would you export something like a mozmail or simplelogin.io alias? ---------------------------------------------------------------------- GolemancerVekk · 2023-12-05 08:49 > Services like Firefox Relay and simplelogin that give you randomised email masks at *@simplelogin.io or *@mozmail.com Wouldn't that negate all the advantages you get from having your own domain? When you use a relay service you get a limited amount of aliases and you're tied to it the same way you'd be tied to @gmail.com. If the thing that attracts you to a relay is the ability to make up addresses on the fly, you can solve that with catch-all or wildcard aliases. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- TuhanaPF · 2023-12-05 08:56 Yeah, so that brings us to the purpose of this post. While I'm prioritising portability, I'm not prioritising the privacy aspect of email masking. And I'm wanting the opinion of people like yourself to advise if I'm making a foolish decision here. From your first reply, I think I'm actually doing an okay thing and using my domain for aliasing is perfectly fine. So your first answer was super helpful :) Sorry if my post wasn't really clear on what I was looking for here. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- GolemancerVekk · 2023-12-05 09:02 No worries, email is complex. It's tied to your online identity so you have to be careful how you deal with it. I reevaluate my email needs every few years and my approach has changed several times since the '90s.