Katsmeow
Give me a museum and I'll fill it. (Picasso) Give me a forum ...
- Joined
- Jul 11, 2009
- Messages
- 5,308
I am going to finally get my email addresses straightened out and more secure. For almost 20 years, I have used my own domain name. I have a gmail account that I only use for a few websites and it fetches all of the mail for my own domain.
I want to end this and plan to go to several gmail addresses. (I don't feel I need the individual domain email any more. I started it years ago when you got your email from your ISP and if you switched ISPs you abruptly changed email. Now, I feel gmail will be around and you can download everything anyway). I do know that this long term email address of mine has been compromised in a number of the various compromises that have occurred over the years. I've changed passwords periodically of course.
Anyway, I have been doing research on this and generally see recommendations to have several different email addresses. The typical I have seen is:
1. Investment/banking accounts - Use an email address that is dedicated to those accounts and don't use that email address for anything else. I do plan to do this and will not forward that email to my main gmail account.
2. Primary email account - Use this for personal email and other important emails including emails such as credit cards, mortgage company, etc.
3. Email used for accounts that don't require a lot of security or where you think that the information is not very secure. Examples would be Facebook and forums like this.
4. Throwaway email. Use this when you need to put in an email address for something that you aren't going to routinely use. Think of a website where you need to sign up to get some benefit or information but don't plan to come back. Or, a forum you sign up for to deal with a specific issue (for example, a product specific forum) and don't plan to come back to.
All of that seems fine but on further reflection I struggle between 2 and 3 and wonder if I should add another email.
FWIW, I do have 3 Gmail addresses that I don't think have ever been compromised. One of them is the master Gmail account I have now. Everything basically is sent to it and everything is mailed from it. It would be convenient to keep it. I could easily make it my main email account except the email address is sort of long and might be prone to misspelling by others. On the other hand, I have over 150,000 emails sitting in that account and if get rid of it and make some other account the main account I would need to move those emails which would be tedious. The other alternative is I keep it as my mail email account for receiving/sending email but I use it for forums such as this but create a new primary email account.
Anyway here is the real problem area. My first thought was that I would use the primary email account for my personal emails, any merchants or anything financial (except investments or banking which will have their own separate email that will never mix with the other emails). Then I would put social media, forums, online accounts that are free, etc. in email number 3.
In other words, if they have my credit card or banking info they would go with my prior email. However, many compromises of email addresses, user logins and passwords have been of those kinds of sites. One of the compromises of my email address (years ago) was a compromise of Adobe for example. So I do wonder if I should have the primary account include all merchants and places I spend money or if I should instead do something like this
1. Investment/banking
2. Personal email, major financial and personal logins. Think credit cards, insurer, mortgage company, utility companies, etc.
3. Merchants who are more garden variety retail merchants that aren't really large ticket merchants. So, a clothing store, or Walmart, etc.
4. Social/forums/online logins that don't involve money.
5. Throw away email.
In some ways I like it better. On the other hand it isn't always easy to decide what is category 2 and what is category 3. Is Amazon category 2 -- we buy a lot there but it isn't like a mortgage either.
Any thoughts?
I want to end this and plan to go to several gmail addresses. (I don't feel I need the individual domain email any more. I started it years ago when you got your email from your ISP and if you switched ISPs you abruptly changed email. Now, I feel gmail will be around and you can download everything anyway). I do know that this long term email address of mine has been compromised in a number of the various compromises that have occurred over the years. I've changed passwords periodically of course.
Anyway, I have been doing research on this and generally see recommendations to have several different email addresses. The typical I have seen is:
1. Investment/banking accounts - Use an email address that is dedicated to those accounts and don't use that email address for anything else. I do plan to do this and will not forward that email to my main gmail account.
2. Primary email account - Use this for personal email and other important emails including emails such as credit cards, mortgage company, etc.
3. Email used for accounts that don't require a lot of security or where you think that the information is not very secure. Examples would be Facebook and forums like this.
4. Throwaway email. Use this when you need to put in an email address for something that you aren't going to routinely use. Think of a website where you need to sign up to get some benefit or information but don't plan to come back. Or, a forum you sign up for to deal with a specific issue (for example, a product specific forum) and don't plan to come back to.
All of that seems fine but on further reflection I struggle between 2 and 3 and wonder if I should add another email.
FWIW, I do have 3 Gmail addresses that I don't think have ever been compromised. One of them is the master Gmail account I have now. Everything basically is sent to it and everything is mailed from it. It would be convenient to keep it. I could easily make it my main email account except the email address is sort of long and might be prone to misspelling by others. On the other hand, I have over 150,000 emails sitting in that account and if get rid of it and make some other account the main account I would need to move those emails which would be tedious. The other alternative is I keep it as my mail email account for receiving/sending email but I use it for forums such as this but create a new primary email account.
Anyway here is the real problem area. My first thought was that I would use the primary email account for my personal emails, any merchants or anything financial (except investments or banking which will have their own separate email that will never mix with the other emails). Then I would put social media, forums, online accounts that are free, etc. in email number 3.
In other words, if they have my credit card or banking info they would go with my prior email. However, many compromises of email addresses, user logins and passwords have been of those kinds of sites. One of the compromises of my email address (years ago) was a compromise of Adobe for example. So I do wonder if I should have the primary account include all merchants and places I spend money or if I should instead do something like this
1. Investment/banking
2. Personal email, major financial and personal logins. Think credit cards, insurer, mortgage company, utility companies, etc.
3. Merchants who are more garden variety retail merchants that aren't really large ticket merchants. So, a clothing store, or Walmart, etc.
4. Social/forums/online logins that don't involve money.
5. Throw away email.
In some ways I like it better. On the other hand it isn't always easy to decide what is category 2 and what is category 3. Is Amazon category 2 -- we buy a lot there but it isn't like a mortgage either.
Any thoughts?