Thanks for the thorough review Marc π! Your concerns are absolutely right π.
With SimpleLogin being open-source in the future, one can deploy the program somewhere else if somehow the service is shut down and migrate all aliases there. However as the service cost is quite low, it can be maintained easily in the long run.
Technically the emails DO go through SimpleLogin servers. It's the same for other services as far as I know though and none of them is (or intend to be) open-sourced.
At the moment the alias needs to be generated online. I also have other users asking on how to "remember" easily their alias or at least being able to generate one quickly. To be honest I don't have any solution for now that's easy to remember without affecting user privacy: concretely if the rule is too simple, it's easy to know 2 aliases coming from the same person -> easy to cross reference -> no privacy.
There are a bunch of services like this out there already. What sets yours apart?
In my research, some similar services are indeed more advanced in terms of browser extension or mobile app. However they have some issues:
- their emails are usually in spam. It's not their fault and a lot of spam will go through such email alias service. I don't think they have found the solution or at least a compromise. Avoid emails going to spam is really hard though, I experienced it first hand in a lot of projects.
- Their goal stops at the email alias. For me, the alias is only the first (and easy) step. Look at the SimpleLogin developer page and you'll understand π.
- They have no intention to open-source the code. Email alias is not rocket science and open-sourcing it is part of my plan since the beginning.
I don't want to cite their names here as this is not fair. I can give more info over private chat for a specific concurrent if you're interested π.
I'm working an alternative solution myself
The product doesn't really target people who are have their own email servers as making alias is much easier in this case. I would even recommend not using SimpleLogin if this is your case π.
Thanks for the thorough review Marc π! Your concerns are absolutely right π.
With SimpleLogin being open-source in the future, one can deploy the program somewhere else if somehow the service is shut down and migrate all aliases there. However as the service cost is quite low, it can be maintained easily in the long run.
Technically the emails DO go through SimpleLogin servers. It's the same for other services as far as I know though and none of them is (or intend to be) open-sourced.
At the moment the alias needs to be generated online. I also have other users asking on how to "remember" easily their alias or at least being able to generate one quickly. To be honest I don't have any solution for now that's easy to remember without affecting user privacy: concretely if the rule is too simple, it's easy to know 2 aliases coming from the same person -> easy to cross reference -> no privacy.
In my research, some similar services are indeed more advanced in terms of browser extension or mobile app. However they have some issues:
- their emails are usually in spam. It's not their fault and a lot of spam will go through such email alias service. I don't think they have found the solution or at least a compromise. Avoid emails going to spam is really hard though, I experienced it first hand in a lot of projects.
- Their goal stops at the email alias. For me, the alias is only the first (and easy) step. Look at the SimpleLogin developer page and you'll understand π.
- They have no intention to open-source the code. Email alias is not rocket science and open-sourcing it is part of my plan since the beginning.
I don't want to cite their names here as this is not fair. I can give more info over private chat for a specific concurrent if you're interested π.
The product doesn't really target people who are have their own email servers as making alias is much easier in this case. I would even recommend not using SimpleLogin if this is your case π.
Thanks again for the review, I really appreciate!