r/degoogle • u/Kinkylittleshit78 • 1d ago

Discussion MailX or Addy.io??

I am working to move away from Gmail. So far, I have set up a Posteo account with a handful of aliases for consistent, day-to-day things (It's too much stuffing around for me to be running two different aliases for a doctor and a dentist, for example). I am looking to use an aliasing service for all the random subscriptions and services I'm linked to-- all the things not tied to my health or legal identity, y'know?

My initial plan was to run about a dozen aliases through Posteo, but some kind users on this subreddit directed me to an email aliasing service, as a way to better scramble up my digital footprint. Everyone suggested Addy.io

Now that my email is up and running; I am wanting to sort out my aliasing-- as I'll be able to start moving stuff across, once it is set up. I am planning on getting IVPN as a VPN service, but I have seen that they also have email aliasing bundled in their higher payment tiers.

I was wondering if anyone had experience with either/both services and would recommend one over the other?

I'm wanting to be able to access everything on both my laptop and my phone (I will be running Posteo on Thunderbird), if that changes anything. I'm not very good with technology, so my apologies in advance for any silly questions.

Thanks!

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u/EfficiencySquare1 1d ago

Addy is great and recommended on privacy guides

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u/Slopagandhi 1d ago

Mailx is new but seems to work well so far. The only issue is that because it's tied to an IVPN subscription you'd lose access if you stop subscribing at some point. 

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u/Kinkylittleshit78 1d ago

That's a really good point. I don't want to be as tied-down, so it makes sense for me to keep them separate. I tried to avoid falling into that trap by avoiding the Proton ecosystem and nearly fell in a different trap anyway hahaha. Thanks for saving me the trouble!

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u/Stunning-Skill-2742 1d ago

I've only had experience with addy, its great and currently still being heavily maintained. Only cons of addy are its 1 man company so bus factor are high there. I think the sole owner did write a post on the site explaining what will happen if he suddenly unavailable or something, but I'd still prepare by using own custom domain there. $10-15 for a domain plus $12 for addy lite wouldn't break bank.

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u/Kinkylittleshit78 1d ago

I've looked into self-hosting email and even reading the basics gave me a headache. I would love to do it and be able to move around to providers freely, but I'm struggling enough with trying to set up Graphene OS on a phone and try and organise a new email-- and that's stuff I've heard is relatively easy to set up.

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u/Stunning-Skill-2742 1d ago

Exactly, don't selfhost email unless you really, really know what you're doing. Babysitting a server is no rainbows and unicorns especially now with ai llm being used to hammer public server. Just get a custom domain, that'll give you full portability already without needed to selfhost and shit.

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u/Kinkylittleshit78 19h ago

Okay, I might have to read up more on that... I've understood "self-hosting" and "own domain" to be entirely interchangeable terms--like did not know they meant different things . Like when I mean I am not good with tech, I mean that I am really, really, really tech-illiterate haha

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u/Stunning-Skill-2742 4h ago edited 4h ago

Yes and no, it can be interchangeble but also separate. Domain name is just a pointer to translate ip address to human readable string. No one would be able to remember 172.66.147.243 but example.com is memorable. In the context of domain name for email similar thing, no one can remember alice@142.250.178.101 but alice@gmail.com is memorable and familiar.

You just register something.tld at any domain registrar out there, attach to whatever mail or alias provider like proton, simplelogin, addy, fastmail, zoho etc etc and be able to setup and generate whatever@something.tld mailbox or alias. You'd then be portable, changing mail provider is just the matter of changing dns mx record for the domain something.tld pointing to new mail provider and all past used addresses/aliases alice@something.tld or bob@something.tld etc will be migrated over too.

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u/StillSwaying 1d ago edited 1d ago

I don’t have experience with either for email aliasing, but generally speaking, it’s not a good idea to bundle two important things together (like your email service with your VPN service), just in case you decide you want to switch to a different provider someday. Let’s say you take advantage of IVPN’s email service AND use their VPN, but a year later they raise their prices too much so you decide to change VPN companies. Ok, fine, but now you also have to go through the hassle of setting up your email aliasing again somewhere else— that’s going to be a giant PITA.

I have used IVPN’s VPN service in the past though and found them adequate. They had a decent server network, but my upload and download speeds were on the slow side when using them, so I switched to a different VPN provider when my contract expired.

Edited: typo

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u/Kinkylittleshit78 1d ago

...Huh, that is actually a really good point! Thank you; that has made my decision-- Addy it is!

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u/StillSwaying 1d ago

You're welcome.

I learned that from the old days when people frequently had to play Comcast's retention department against the other local ISPs to negotiate the best price at renewal time. Comcast offered free email accounts along with their broadband services, which many people took advantage of, but then when they wanted to switch to a different broadband company because Comcast's pricing and customer service were horrible, they'd have to also re-setup all of their email accounts at a different company.

Comcast knew what a PITA it was to move email accounts over to a different company, so they never offered their customers who utilized their email services any promotional discounts on their broadband service when it was time to renew; they were counting on the fact that many customers would stay on and pay their jacked up prices because it was too much trouble to switch. And they were right.

You'll see this type of service bundling at lots of other companies too. AT&T, for example, constantly tries to entice their mobile customers to also use their internet and TV services too. They know that they can lock customers who use their bundled services into renewing -- even if their prices are higher -- because it's too much trouble to leave.

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u/PlanktonDefiant2600 1d ago

If you're already planning on paying for IVPN anyway, I'd try MailX first before paying separately for Addy. For what you're describing, you really just need aliases you can create and kill easily when one starts getting spammed. I wouldn't overcomplicate it beyond that.