kahunaburger

I’m getting increasingly annoyed with web-sites that ask for my email-address and verify that email-address when all I want to do is to read a story on the site. Don’t get me wrong: if I think that a site offers enough value, I will certainly sign up with them and use the same (permanent) email-address that I use for other sites. If you are in the same position as me, here are two tips that you may find useful:

1. use a throw away email address: There are quite a number of places on the web, which offer “disposable” email-address. No need to signup (like for HotMail, Yahoo Mail, etc.), just go to the service’s main page and pick an email-address or let the service generate one for you. Then hand the newly generated email to the site that asks for registration. Within a few minutes you’ll receive the verification email for your new address and you can use that address from now on to access the site. No need to worry about emails that are sent to your “disposable” email-address. Here are a few of the services that I use/used:
   • http://www.dodgeit.com/ (seems to have some issues lately: sometimes emails don’t arrive)
   • http://10minutemail.com/ (email-addresses self-destruct after 10 mins; you have the option to keep them alive longer)
   • http://www.mailinator.com/
   • http://www.temporaryinbox.com/

   Some of those services above even offer extensions for Mozilla’s FireFox, which means that the generation of a random email is only a few clicks away. With more and more people using those disposable email-address services, web sites that require registration have also begun to filter those addresses and reject emails that point to nowhere. Just keep on trying with different providers and you’ll eventually find one that has not been black-listed yet. This del.icio.us search for “disposable email” should give you a list of all current services and there’s also an up-to-date list on listible.com.

2. see if BugMeNot works for the site you’re trying to access: This technique involves a site called www.bugmenot.com. BugMeNot has been around for a number of years already. The idea is the following: if you signed up with a bogus email-address/password on a site that requires registration, why not make it available to others who try to access the same site? So, John Doe went through the email-verfication, password-generation process and has a valid username/password combination for a site. He sends those credentials to BugMeNot and others can lookup the information and reuse it. Multiple people share the some login information without having to go through any signup process. And again, there’s a nifty FireFox extension which allows you to retrieve login credentials for a site with the click of a button.

   As with disposable email-addresses, some sites that require registration started to monitor BugMeNot as well and automatically add usernames that appear on BugMeNot to a list of no-no addresses. If you find a certain username/password combo does not work, keep on trying: BugMeNot usually has a whole list of usernames/passwords to try. And if all fails, you can still go back to the technique outlined above.