Mailinator

[dallas77us]

Hi Jeff. Long time, no post. But that's 'cause POP Peeper is so good.

Is there a way to retrieve email from mailinator dot com?

I've been using Mailinator free for two user names for a decade or so and checking hourly, along with about 125 other feeds, with an RSS client (QuiteRSS). But they just abandoned their RSS service, so I'm looking another for way to check outside of the browser.

Cheers!

Concerned members: Thank you. I'm aware of all the risks using any "disposable" email address service (especially Mailinator) so save yourself the effort to tell me as I got me covered. Anyone curious about DEAs... Google is your friend.

[Jeff]

A quick description of what Mailinator is:
It's a free service that provides *public* email addresses (ie. no password required to access an email account). The basic premise is that you use this service when you are required to provide an email address and you need a confirmation code. There are similar services for when SMS/text messages are required.

Ok, to the question you had: is there a way to retrieve email from this service using POP Peeper?
Answer: I doubt it (which is, presumably they don't support IMAP/POP3). POP Peeper does support RSS, but if they stopped supporting that...

I couldn't find any information on why they stopped supporting RSS. Presumably, there's a specific "map.html" webpage that had RSS information and that now 404's. Was there any official announcement? ie. is it possible that the RSS feed is just broken?

That being said, I can think of a couple of reasons why RSS would be disabled:
1) It's using massive amounts of bandwidth for something that has questionable value (referring to the RSS feed)
2) It's being abused by people trying to scrape information from people who forget that the information is public

So, I was thinking, "why would someone use this service (for 10 years) instead of creating their own email address @hotmail/gmail/etc.?"
The answer I came up with: You only care about the most recent (10 or so) messages even if the account has thousands of messages.

POP Peeper doesn't really have a viable option for this. It can limit the number of messages, but it affects all accounts, which is not ideal. You could create a separate configuration (ini file) for it, but this may not be convenient.

So, I decided that the solution to this was to add the "message limit" as a per-account setting. This actually solves a dilemma that I've had with this option ever since its inception, which is that it currently affects both POP3 and IMAP and there can be issues with POP3 (as described in the help, so I won't get into that here). I had always debated between separating the option per-protocol or adding it as per-account, and the above use-case definitely justifies the per-account approach. I've actually already added this into the code (full disclosure: as a non-UI option atm; but even if I don't get around to adding the UI, it will still be available in the next release [current: v4.4.2 test01] by editing the ini file directly)

Is this an acceptable compromise? It would mean not using mailinator but instead using your own "disposable" email address from whatever email service you want, but I'm not sure how important/relevant that is?

[dallas77us]

I got a bit ahead of myself that Mailinator has abandoned RSS. Since about late April my two feed icons have been tagged with a red X and in the browser a 503 is returned (No server is available to handle this request). Sorry, I just wanted to keep the inquiry quick and terse.

In May I emailed their support if the feed URL had been changed or what. I got a reply the same day (nice) that they're updating Mailinator "but don't yet have a timetable for RSS."

The web site has indeed undergone a major redesign but no mention is made of RSS in FAQ or DOCS as in the previous design. No RSS subscribe buttons in the address bar or pages either.

I plan on making another inquiry maybe by the end of the month if the service is still 503. I don't need my RSS client banging a dead service.

But in the meantime I wondered if the mail could be retrieved with POP Peeper where we're at now...

"So, I was thinking, 'why would someone use this service (for 10 years) instead of creating their own email address @hotmail/gmail/etc.?'"

I have three gmail accounts and one each for yahoo, outlook (was hotmail) and AOL (was netscape). Browser only.

I have two for my ISP, one for account management (payments, settings) the other for personal email business - finance, shopping, career... I use Thunderbird (in a VeraCrypt container) for these and some emails date back to my first ISP POP account, 1990-something.

Completely unplanned, sigh, it's what I ended up with after twenty five years in IT and being online since the mid 80's. I've lost track of all the webernetz accounts I've had and ISPs, Compuserve, Prodigy. FidoNet.

That's why POP Peeper is of such value to me and part of a security/housekeeping strategy in that I screen by retrieving only headers and deleting the suspicious and unwanted before using the browser or Thunderbird.

"The answer I came up with: You only care about the most recent (10 or so) messages even if the account has thousands of messages."

Actually because it's there. Couldn't care less about the metrics. Originally, the first became more convenient than DEAs in that I have to remember one for the occasional one-time stuff requiring an email address. And more recently a second for forums now that they mostly all have been overrun by clueless posers (posers, not posters misspelled) and trolls. No way I'm exposing my "real" emails to any of that. (About two years ago I cancelled over a dozen for-many-many-years accounts and created new "anonymous" ones for about half.) As well, it's interesting to observe how much and for how long spam is generated for the former and to monitor for the three or four forums I post to and care to follow for the latter.

I didn't want to tie you up with so comprehensive a reply or put you to work. A "No" or "Sure. Do this..." was my expectation. Then again, the message limit option is an unexpected but welcome outcome and a solution to a long time dilemma.

So, thanks so much for your time. And, of course, POP Peeper.

As for Mailinator, given no more RSS, I'll just have to suffer the proletarian tedium and indignity of using... bookmarks.

Cheers.

Dilligent members: I know what you're thinking! No, I did not use Mailinator in joining this forum in 2009. It wasn't necessary back then.

[Jeff]

But why not create a new email address for the express purpose of replacing mailinator? I mean, I can somewhat understand someone wanting to use a service like that if they very rarely use it, but someone who's been using the same 2 addresses for 10 years; well, it seems like there's a better way and that's what I was trying to suggest.

For example, in my personal use of email, I have different levels of the email address I use:
- I have "permanent" email addresses (personal, business, etc.)
- I have aliases, which, for the most part redirect to a single permanent email address
- I have spam-catcher addresses which I use when I have to provide an email address but -- unless a confirmation code is sent to it (and sometimes you can't tell if one will be required or not) -- I will never care about ever again.

It's obviously the last one that we're talking about. The fact is, the main email address that I use for such purposes is a @hotmail.com address that isn't even in my PP list, but I've been using for so long (pre-PP even) that I don't even think about it when I manually log into the account to retrieve the confirmation code. It wasn't until your post that I had that moment and thought, "there IS a better way!"

When I said: "You only care about the most recent (10 or so) messages even if the account has thousands of messages" -- that was really *my* excuse for why I had never included my spam-catcher email addresses in PP -- I don't want to pollute my PP's message list with email addresses that contain 99% spam (granted, I could stop the mail-check process after retrieving a few headers, but this falls out of what I would call convenient). If I could limit the number of messages I retrieve when I do need to check the account, that crosses over to the "convenient" side of the line.

So, once I build the release that includes the update I made, here's what I plan on doing personally:
- add the account into my main POP Peeper list
- disable it by default so it doesn't automatically check for mail (already possible)
- setting it to retrieve "headers only" (already possible)
- setting it to only retrieve 10 messages (*not* currently possible)
- hiding it from the main message list (already possible)
-> alternatively, I may instead/also "remove messages" after I've gotten the expected email, but that will be a real-time decision

When I sign up for whatever service needed my email address, I'll start pounding "check mail" (via right-click on the account) until I get the email I expect.

Voila!
?

[dallas77us]

Voila!
?

That's an interesting better way and I'll keep it under consideration. Plus, there is no doubt many POP Peeper users will benefit.

It was about 10 years ago I became an old foggie. Easy became a Mission with a Purpose.

And Mailinator (no account, no password, etc. etc. etc.) in RSS is sooooooooooo eeeeeeeeeeasy.

Ten years later, I'm even foggier; there is no cure. In fact, The Mission now is... easy peasy.

Given no Mailinator RSS, the occasional click on a bookmark or two is just that.

In fact, the Easy Mission got me to making a local HTML file I keep in the browser profile folder. It is a single page of 110 Lucida Console links in 12 frames to the sites I visit most of the time and it opens with a button I built for the browser toolbar. I no longer have to drill the Bookmarks pull-down!

[Off Topic]
RSS: I can scan daily ~200 new titles in many of the 125 feeds with the wake up cup of morning coffee and 20 minutes. I mark the ones of interest for attention with breakfast or later in the day. With checks every hour, I open the client now and then to check for the 50 or so that roll in throughout the day.

When Google dumped its reader a few years back, the death of RSS was predicted. Apparently, content providers got some push back from their readers as RSS subscribe buttons continue to prevail.

I did consider the POP Peeper Plus Pack but as you informed me in my posting two years ago, there is no OPML import. Even then I would need to evaluate it against the full featured, stable and polished QuiteRSS. That said, I don't think you should devote any effort toward RSS.
[On Topic]

Thanks again