Whenever you create a new account on any website, service, forum or any other place, you are required to enter your email address. Once you are registered, you will then get a confirmation email and you’ll need to open it and click on the confirmation link. This is the usual behavior of creating an account or registering on any website or service.
The problem with registering on many websites is that sometimes they may spam you. You will be automatically subscribed to their mailing lists and they will keep on flooding you from their emails. There’s also a chance that these websites may sell your email address or complete subscriber list to the highest bidder as a way to earn money. So, how would you protect your email address from such spammers?
One way to protect your primary email address is to create a disposable address that can be created quickly. The advantage of this method is that your primary email address will be kept safe, always.
Enter MaskMe, a Chrome extension that is a superb way to create masked emails. Maskme enables you to create a temporary email address that you can use when registering on websites that you don’t trust.
To get started, install the MaskMe Chrome extension and then register with MaskMe. Now, when you want to register on a website, simply click on the email field and then on “Mask my email”. If you want to use your real email address, then click on Disclose My Email. The website that you have registered on will send a confirmation email. MaskMe will forward that email to your primary email address. If you choose, then you can also disable/stop email forwarding anytime.
Sometimes you may want to receive email again. In such a case, simply enable the forwarding again. This is useful when you want to recover password or for any other purpose.
MaskMe also adds a shortcut in the toolbar which opens the account page. From here, you can create a new masked email, in case you want to register on some applications or services. The Account List option keeps a record of all accounts that you have registered by using a masked email. The Encrypted Password option lists out all the passwords that you have used to login. This program also helps you in generating strong passwords.
Click on Privacy Timeline from the top navigation bar and you’ll be able to see all your online activities. It keeps a track of your online activities and displays it there.
There’s also a paid version available that costs $5 per month. This paid version allows create masked phone numbers, just like masked emails. Overall, MaskMe is a pretty good way to protect your primary email address from spam emails and it helps you to register on websites that you don’t trust.
Leave a Reply