DuckDuckGo Email Protection (aliasing service)

Hello,

I didn’t see it mentioned here yet.
I think it is a very good email aliasing service.

  • Free
  • Unlimited Shared Aliases
  • Unlimited Replies
  • 1 Recipient Mailbox

If we compare the free tier, it looks similar or better than AnonAddy or SimpleLogin.
I tried it for a month now with no problem.
We already have trust in DuckDuckGo since we recommend them as a search engine provider.

I’d Love to Hear What You Think.

2 Likes

I’ve been using this as my main alias service for a while now and can really recommend it. I have used SimpleLogin and AnonAddy and whilst the paid versions of both are more feature packed, if you are not will to pay for premium and use your own domain I think DuckDuckGo’s email service is better.

I do have some complaints with it though:

  1. You have to use either their android app or their browser extension to generate the alias links.
  2. There is no dashboard ui for seeing the aliases you have already created.
  3. You can only access your ‘account’ via a one time code sent to your recipient mailbox, if you lost access to this for some reason I don’t think there would be a way to change where the aliases are forwarded too either so you would lose them. This is my biggest concern, unless I have missed something and you can get access in the case of your mailbox being inaccessible.

Also on a superficial note I really like the @duck.com domain.

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@madhogs Thank you for sharing your opinion! :slight_smile: I also agree with the three complaints you mentioned. I don’t know if they plan on expanding it feature wise, or if it is intended like that for simplicity.

For people reading this, the only way to “manage” the aliases you have created, is to first receive an email from the website you used the alias, and then at the top of the email you click on the small DuckDuckGo banner. Then you have the option to deactivate it.

But even with these cons, I also feel DuckDuckGo is better compared to SimpleLogin or AnonAddy free tier.

Funny story about that : An employee asked for my email address at a store for a return, so I gave them a duck alias, and they also really liked it lol

1 Like

I created my aliases via Bitwarden. You will need the API authorization item and you are good to go.

That’s my main issue with the service. Other than that, it’s really good.

Nowadays I’ve ditched DDG E-mail Protection and have gone for a custom domain with unique aliases for each account. Also created via Bitwarden.

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Ty @landordragen . u helped me uninstall the duckduck app. I bend the knee. :rofl::+1:

note that a custom domain name does not give you privacy as every alias will be known that are owned by the same person or company. Although will work for companies selling your data to send random newsletters.

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I believe it is always dependent on your threat model.

To me, it’s fine.

Is this something that can be considered for the site? As I said I think its the best completely free option available.
Would also be curious if there is anything about it that i’ve not noticed that would cause it to be excluded.

3 Likes

And about 20 sends per day.

Official manual:

How do I compose a new email from my personal Duck Address?

You can do so by sending a message from your current Email Protection forwarding address using a special recipient address format.

For example, if your personal Duck Address is jane@duck.com and you want to send to your friend’s email brian@gmail.com. To send the email from your personal Duck Address, you would send the message to brian_at_gmail.com_jane@duck.com.

I don’t like custom domains as they will tie everything to one domain = everything used by one person who owns domain. It is a little bit not private. Don’t you think so?

5 Likes

How do I compose a new email from my personal Duck Address?

You can do so by sending a message from your current Email Protection forwarding address using a special recipient address format.

For example, if your personal Duck Address is jane@duck.com and you want to send to your friend’s email brian@gmail.com. To send the email from your personal Duck Address, you would send the message to `brian_at_gmail.com_jane@duck.com

I was just about to comment this! I found this out the other day, and I’ve been using DuckDuckGo mail since it came out. Definitely a great service, I would love to see it added to the site!

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its not a competitive service because of the way the duckduckgo extension works is horrible (forces ddg search engine as default) and its missing a ton of features. the saving grave is that its very lenient for a free service

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If your password manager supports email aliasing services, you don’t have to use the DDG browser extension after the initial setup. For example, Bitwarden directly integrates the DDG email protection into their apps. Also, even without this, you don’t necessarily have to use the DDG browser extension since DDG allows you to generate aliases with their apps on different platforms.

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ddgs apps are also pretty subpar to say the least. but thanks for telling me about the bitwarden integration, didn’t know that

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Using it in Bitwarden should definitely be the recommended method if this service is added to the site

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I tried it today and I really liked it (using it with bitwarden).
They clean your email trackers, you can reply to the sender with the same alias and you blend in without using a subdomain, with integration in bitwarden, all this being free.
Solid service in my book. Nice.

4 Likes

You can use it without extension or browser.

  1. Download DDG browser (yes, for one time)
  2. Visit this (or similar website and copy your user agent
  3. Download user agent switch extension.
    For example:
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/user-agent-string-switcher/
https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/user-agent-switcher-for-c/djflhoibgkdhkhhcedjiklpkjnoahfmg
  1. Set copied user agent
  2. Visit Get Email Protection: More Privacy, Same Inbox
  3. Profit
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There is one issue though, DDG scans through your emails.

And there is one other issue. If your mail provider is down, you won’t be able to change forwarding email. Addy.io and SimpleLogin will allow to change it.

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If ddg scans through, how is it different than other email service that proxies/cleans trackers? Looking at you proton.

If your email provider is down (when is not important), you need a different provider.

That is the issue about, lol. Okey, if you change your provider, because old is down, you still will never receive forwarded mails from duck.com, because …well… you old provider is down and you can not change to forward to new provider, so you start registering new accounts again and hope your new provider wont go down, or you start again.

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Eh, don’t think having to install and use the user agent extension just for one website is the greatest idea. I would have thought you would probably be better off just having a separate browser for that.