In terms of internet privacy, what are email aliases, how do they work, and when would I use them?

Question

Do you use a different one for everything you sign up for online? Only social media?

In: Technology

Answer 1

I use Firefox Relay. What I do is everytime I want to sign up somewhere, instead of giving them normanyeetus (at) gmail.com, I create a firefox email on the fly named after the thing I sign up on, for example ubereats (at) nm.mozmail.com. The mails sent to that are automatically forwarded to my main email, but no one sees my main email. These “mask” emails can be created, deleted and forward blocked on the fly. Pros:

1. No one knows my main email, leaked masks can be easily deleted and no spam is received.

2. When an email mask is leaked, if you named them right, you can actually know where the leak happened. If I get spam on facebook (at) nm.slp.mozmail.com, it means Facebook had a leak or someone found my email adress on facebook.

That’s just the pros I saw in that service, I’m sure there’s more