Mailinator is another take on the throwaway email address
March 3rd, 2008
Throwaway email addresses are an important tool in the fight against spam. You know the drill: you want to sign up for a free this or that—online subscription, access to some hidden information, or what have you. You have to supply a valid email address, but you know that the minute you hit the "send" button, you're going to be deluged in spam. You need a throwaway address, where it makes no difference what the spammers send your way.
Mailinator is a free service that gives you a throwaway email address. It has several advantages over similar offerings elsewhere. First, there is no sign up—just tell your contact to send mail to bigboy@mailinator.com or spoiledrotten@mailinator.com, and it will go there, without your having to create the account ahead of time. If you need to check that email—to send back a verification, for instance—you have several options. Go back to the Mailinator web site; subscribe to their RSS feed for that address; put a Mailinator widget on any web page; or access the mailbox directly at http://:<accountname>.mailinator.com.
Remember, of course, that there's no security here, so this is not the service you want to use to pass the launch codes along to your friends, for example.
Mailinator is a free service and should support most modern web browsers.
