Several days ago, when I was making this account, I could register without email. Now if you check the sign up page you can see that they require an email.
I think it’s a shame because emails nowadays are hard/impossible to create privately (requiring phone number, etc) and annoying to manage (especially if you go rigorous about it, one email for every service you sign up for). The issue with this is that in many cases, you have to trust your email provider with the information that you signed up for a particular service and potentially even your username on the service. Moreover, that has potential to “link” your accounts on different sites.
No email required also allows people to create non-permanent throwaway accounts easier which are commonly used on reddit to ask sensitive questions or for other reasons.
Sorry if this posts seems too negative, I appreciate what the admins of the lemmy instance do, and I won’t leave lemmy.world just because of it. I am sure that admins had good reasons for this change. However, I still think that this could be important to bring up, because it’s about internet privacy, ease of sign up (especially for throwaway accounts), and possibly other reasons that I couldn’t mention right now.
https://relay.firefox.com/ is your friend. It allows you to create e-mail masks that mirrors to your main E-mail in just a few seconds. I wouldn’t say it’s 100% secure since there is a chance that a security breach happens, but I trust Mozilla. They know their stuff.
Thanks for recommendation. Email aliasing do solve some of the concerns, however they aren’t the ultimate solution because many email aliasing services (firefox relay included) require payment for unlimited amount of aliases and not everyone can/wants to pay. As well as you still need to trust the email provider.
There probably just isn’t better “individual” approach than making email simply not required, simply because working around required email is already some “resistance”, whereas no required email is no “resistance”. By “individual” approach i mean that no required email approach is best if you consider it from view point of single individual, not considering the positive sides of required email.
It’s one dollar a month that’s affordable, and you’re supporting Mozilla two birds with one stone and what you get out of it is emence. What you get is email tracker blocking, throw away emails for spam, promotional blocking for when you need to sift through the spam, site email isolation: so what your alias (now called mask) has been leaked just change and disable, to enter the email (with the extension) you do a click and a click and you’re done this is faster the typing the whole thing, and you can host it your self https://github.com/mozilla/fx-private-relay
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Also tutanota
Thanks for recommendation. Tutanota does seem to be highly regarded privacy wise, however they technically don’t allow multiple emails for free [just like proton mail], according to their Terms and Conditions: https://tutanota.com/terms/
4.7. Each natural person is prohibited to sign up for more than one free of charge Tutanota account for private use. For additional accounts a paid tariff must be selected which allows adding aliases and user accounts.
See my comment under this comment about Proton Mail to see why this matters. (keeping the thread a bit more DRY (Don’t repeat yourself) since I did a lot of repetitions here already).
Yep you’re right, sorry I thought we were just talking about emails you could get without a phone number
It’s fine, whole comment section is kinda like that anyway, and + someone will probably find this recommendation useful nonetheless.
I got in before the change!
I’m assuming the number of bot accounts would skyrocket if there isn’t any sort of email verification.
But I mostly agree, I think a good compromise would be to just have a captcha on the sign up page.
I would like to know more about possible positive sides of required email address (like how much does it change stuff, etc), and see discussions of if people agree/disagree with having required email.
Try out simple login! You still need to trust the owners (Proton) but it solves many of your concerns.
Thanks for recommendation. Indeed, email aliasing solves some of the concerns. You still also need to trust the email provider (mentioning just in case, because you didn’t). Other issue is that SimpleLogin, and many other email aliasing services have limited amount of free aliases. SimpleLogin has 10 aliases for free, and unlimited amount for $30/year. Not everyone can/wants to pay so sadly this solution isn’t ultimate.
There probably just isn’t better “individual” approach than making email simply not required, simply because working around required email is already some “resistance”, whereas no required email is no “resistance”. By “individual” approach i mean that no required email approach is best if you consider it from view point of single individual, not considering the positive sides of required email.
I’ve been loving iCloud’s hide my email feature
Thanks for recommendation. That seems to be what’s called an email aliasing service. If that is so, you still need to trust the email provider as well as pay for the iCloud service.
There probably just isn’t better “individual” approach than making email simply not required, simply because working around required email is already some “resistance”, whereas no required email is no “resistance”. By “individual” approach i mean that no required email approach is best if you consider it from view point of single individual, not considering the positive sides of required email.
You could use mailinator.com which allows you to create a free public mail box you can access. Just be aware anyone can access it if they figure out what address you used. Once you get in, go into your settings and then remove the email from your account (should still be optional in settings).
This sounds like a terrible idea! Why would you give out a security risk like this to anyone?
I never said it was a good idea, and I pointed out the major security concern.
Just be aware anyone can access it if they figure out what address you used.
Plus, you could use it to sign up, and then remove the email address completely in lemmy.world settings once you are logged in. The advantage: no need to sign up for any mail service.
Thanks for recommendation. This sounds just like temporary email except public. It’s good to know that lemmy.world allows you to simply remove an email without adding new one, but I wouldn’t rely on that behavior (to exist in future), and new user (that considers signing up but didn’t yet) may not know that that is even possible.
However, temporary email addresses and mailnator seem to contradict all the possible positive sides of required email address.
There probably just isn’t better “individual” approach than making email simply not required, simply because working around required email is already some “resistance”, whereas no required email is no “resistance”. By “individual” approach i mean that no required email approach is best if you consider it from view point of single individual, not considering the positive sides of required email.
