Mailinator

Mailinator is a disposable email service which can be used to prevent the problems caused by spam. The website works in a unique way where any email address imaginable already exists, you don’t need a password you simply need to enter your chosen name and you will have access to your emails. All of the emails will be deleted automatically after one hour and to read them you either need to sign in on the website, or sign up to the RSS feed. No email is ever forwarded, and everything is stripped out of the emails to ensure that they are perfectly safe. Mailinator is the very first disposable email application, it was written by ManyBrain, Inc in 2003 and they also run a website known as talkinator, which is an instant messaging application with a few differences. It’s possible to use mailinator without signing up to the service; in fact every single email address imaginable already exists and is ready to receive email. This means that you can enter an email address when signing up even without registering for your email address first. Signing up to something with the email address of abc@mailinator.com is really easy, you can then head on over to mailinator and tap in abc to view the mailbox. This does however mean that other people will be able to read all of your emails which is why you must be careful what you decide to send there. Mailinator should only really be used for spam, it’s not a good idea to choose an address and send your bank details there. Using mailinator makes it extremely easy to protect yourself from the problems caused by spam and keeps your email address private, which is after all exactly how it should be. The main difference is that you are free to choose any email address, which means rather than being given a completely random and impossible to remember address, you can choose a much better one. This makes people less likely to suspect you of trying to dodge them. As all emails are deleted in an hour rather than the email address expiring after a set amount of time it is possible to continue using the same email address if you need to. Mailinator has a familiar user interface; it looks a lot like other popular web based email services such as hotmail. Signing in is really easy as no passwords are required, just tap in the name and click the button. There will then be a list of the 10 most recent emails to that email box, all emails are deleted after one hour. It’s also possible to create your own custom widget for any email address which can then be added to various websites. This makes it really easy to check the messages on a regular basis. There is no need to register on mailinator; you already have access to any email box that you could possibly imagine. Just give someone the address then check it out. Mailinator is free for everyone to use, there are adverts at the top of the page which is how they make their money. However the adverts are not obtrusive and don’t cause any distraction when using the website. Mailinator is perfect for anyone wanting to try and dodge as much spam as possible, signing up to websites normally involves divulging your email address, in which case they can spam the address. Another option would be to use a mailinator address so that you never experience any of the problems.