Spamgourmet
The SpamGourmet internet service offered disposable email addresses from 2000 to 2019 to protect users from spam . The service was free and funded through Google AdSense advertising. The name of the service is made up of spam and gourmet and indicates that the purpose of this service is to "swallow" or "eat" unsolicited advertising emails.
functionality
If an email address is required on the Internet, a SpamGourmet address can be given. SpamGourmet then forwards the number of mails specified in the address (see below) to the correct mail account and the following mails to this address are ignored by SpamGourmet.
You can also reply to incoming mails without revealing your own mail address.
Once logged in, the user never needs to visit the site again. Registered users can independently determine the number of disposable email addresses by inventing new disposable addresses as often as they want. If you don't want to invent new mail addresses, you can reset the counter of used addresses to zero in the submenu “Show hidden disposable addresses”.
Structure of the mail addresses
SpamGourmet's email addresses are basically structured as follows:
- (Prefix.) Any word. (CountMail.) Username@SpamGourmet.com.
Any word can be any string of numbers and letters. If the user has saved a prefix in professional mode , the character string must begin with this prefix. The parameter number mails determines how many mails are forwarded to this address. A number from 1 to 20 or words beginning with the letters a to t can be specified. The prefix , the code word and the number of mails are not absolutely necessary. If the number of mails is omitted, the user receives a maximum of as many mails as is specified in the user settings (the standard for setting up a Spamgourmet e-mail address is three, the highest permitted value is twenty). The user name is specified when you log in.
Use cases, known issues
Typical use cases for such addresses are forums , software registrations, newsletters, etc. Since SpamGourmet swallows emails without comment after the valid number has expired , the service should not be used for important correspondence.
Since the service has become quite well known, SpamGourmet e-mail addresses are no longer accepted by some Internet services that are financed by the sale of e-mail addresses. In addition, numerous Internet forums with mandatory registration prevent the use of SpamGourmet addresses in order to curb the registration of troll accounts . Alternative addresses can be found on the SpamGourmet website to circumvent this problem.
Shutdown / restart
In 2019, the operator announced that it would finally end the service for health reasons. Since he had ruled out the user's e-mail addresses being passed on, there was also no conceivable transfer to a new operator. Registration for new users has not been possible since 2020.
Spamgourmet has been online again since May 20, 2020 and allows new user registrations.
Open source
SpamGourmet's software is open source and will be emailed to interested users on request or is available on SourceForge .
See also
Web links
- SpamGourmet , see in particular FAQ and WhatsNew
- Source code for SpamGourmet