User Reviews
Mailinator Reviewed
5 out of 5Gets the job doneOctober 23, 2009
By expats3417
Although no password is needed and anyone can read messages sent to Mailinator.com, it relies on the principle of ""security through obscurity"". What the article author failed to mention is that messages sent to Mailinator automatically disappear after a few hours, so if you fail or forget to read them, they won't persist forever. According to their site, the time varies from about 3 to 7 hours, depending on the traffic volume they're handling. You can also delete messages manually immediately after reading them. If you pick a strange mailbox name, it's not likely anyone will be able to guess it before the message evaporates or you've had a chance to read and delete it yourself. There is no way to send a message with Mailinator; it is a receive-only service. You can, however, set up a mailinator.com profile in your email program to make it appear as if you'd sent from Mailinator.com or one of their alternate domains. This could backfire if a clever recipient were to analyze the email header, where the true origin of the email is revealed. I tend to pick a mailbox name that matches my login name for a given site. My browser can remember logins and passwords, so I don't have to write down Mailinator addresses for every site I visit. Don't use Mailinator.com for any critical communication. It's great, though, for those news and blog sites that require clicking on a verification link in an email message to allow one to post a comment. It's enough of an annoyance to protect the site from spammers, yet not so difficult to do that it discourages commenting. Just keep a browser window or tab open at Mailinator.com while you post comments in another. As noted by the article author, some sites block the use of Mailinator.com addresses when creating accounts. Rarely, however, do they also block Mailinator.com's alternate domains, so the service is useful in most cases.

