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FAQ


For questions not answered here, contact us or go to the E4ward discussion group.
Registering
Terms of Service
How much does E4ward.com cost?
What does an alias look like?
Using your own domain name
What is a forward?
Can I see some examples?
Will it work with my mail client / email service / ISP / Operating System? Any download required?
Do I need to set up an account in my mail client for each alias?
What if my email address is already receiving spam?
Can I see who spammed me?
E4ward.com vs. challenge/response (C/R) systems?
Does E4ward.com ever generate any spam (aka collateral damage)?
Will my contacts ever have to "jump through hoops" to reach me?
Tell me about random aliases?
Can I choose to bounce or accept all messages to unknown aliases?
What is the *any/*catchall forward?
What does *bounce mean?
Can I have multiple real addresses (REA"s)?

ANSWERS


Using your own domain name.

Your can use e4ward.com with your own domain name. Suppose you owned the domain example.com and you wanted a create a random alias instead of a recognizable name. It might look like the following:

a7um34x05@example.com

To use your own domain, you need to add to your e4ward account and also update your mx record at your registrar to specify mail.e4ward.com.

What is a forward?

A forward is simply a pair of email addresses: an alias and your real email address (REA). You can create a unique forward for each of your contacts. There is also a catchall forward to define what happens with incoming mail which doesn't match any of your existing forwards.

What is an alias?

Here's an example of an alias:

nozama@example.e4ward.com

An alias is an address to which your mail is sent whereas your REA is the address from which you download your email. E4ward.com forwards email from the aliases to your REA. The secrecy of your REA is preserved while the vulnerability to spam is transferred to the alias. However, it is very easy to dispose of an alias (since it is not shared by all your contacts). In contrast, it is hard to stop using a public real email address because you would have to notify a lot of people.

What if my email address is already receiving spam?

If your real email address is already receiving spam, E4ward.com cannot stop that spam since it will bypass the E4ward.com servers. Unfortunately, once an email address ends up in spam lists, it is permanently compromised. In this case the best approach is to create a new mailbox email address.

This may be painful, like changing telephone numbers, but you only have to do it once, and then you will always be able to keep the new address 100% spam free. Even if your new email address somehow becomes compromised, you can easily replace it since none of your legitimate contacts have it anyway.

Examples

Can I see some examples?
AliasForward toMemo
amzn@myacct.e4ward.comme@myisp.comamznYour alias
x7rkf3jdj@myacct.e4ward.comme@myisp.comnetquoteOr generated
f7xnqr9y@myacct.e4ward.comme2@myisp.comnewsalertAnother to-addr
list3@mydomain.commylists@myisp.comegroupsYour domain
f7ra3t2x@mydomain.combouncesmilepopBounce
*any@mydomain.com*primaryaddress*catchallCatchall forward


In the amzn forward , the alias name was chosen (ie "amzn") instead of generated.
In the netquote forward, the alias was generated (ie "x7rkf3jdj").
In the newsalert forward, a second REA is used.

The next 3 examples show how you can use your own domain (eg "mydomain.com") instead of e4ward.com

In the smilepop forward, email is explicity bounced (with a 550 code to the sending MTA).

The "catchall" forward specifies how email to a particular domain should be handled if there is no other matching alias. In this case the mail is forwarded to the primary REA.

Will it work with my mail client / email service / ISP / Operating System? Any download required?

E4ward.com will work with any email client, and any email service such as yahoo.com, any ISP eg AOL (which adheres to standards for processing email), and any operating system. E4ward.com is server based, so there is nothing to download.


Do I need to set up an account in my mail client for each alias?

No. You can use a single from-address (eg one account in Outlook) for all your outgoing mail. E4ward will automatically change the from-address header from the one specified in your email client to one of your aliases. See Sending email from an alias

Domains

In E4ward.com a domain is the part of an alias after the "@". You can use an e4ward.com subdomain as your domain. For example if your account name is example, then your domain would be example.e4ward.com.

Can I use my own domain name(s) instead of e4ward.com?

Yes. You can define your own domain name(s) within your E4ward.com account, and then point your mx record of your domain to mail.e4ward.com.

How do I know where spam comes from?

By using a unique forward for each contact, you know that contact is responsible if you get spam on that alias.

E4ward.com vs. challenge/response (C/R) systems?

Does E4ward.com ever generate any spam (aka collateral damage)?
Will my contacts ever have to "jump through hoops" to reach me?

There are several drawbacks to challenge/response systems. One is that it forces your contacts to "jump through hoops" by responding to a confirmation email. Some users find this annoying.

A second problem is that spammers forge from-addresses. So most confirmations are sent to innocent third parties instead of the spammer. This is called "collateral damage" and many consider this to be another form of spam. e4ward.com never generates this kind of additional spam.

Tell me about random aliases

With e4ward.com you can use random aliases or aliases of your choosing. To generate a random alias on the forward page, just click the @ (at-sign). Random aliases have the advantage of being harder for spammers to guess. It also makes it harder for you to guess what that alias is for. However e4ward.com allows you to define descriptive labels for your forwards. You can use a combination of random and meaningful alias names.

Can I choose to bounce or accept all messages to unknown aliases?

Yes, see below

What is the *any/*catchall forward?

When processing an incoming mail, E4ward tries to locate a forward in your account which matches the alias and the domain in the email (eg accountname.e4ward.com or yourdomain.com). If there is no such forward, then E4ward locates the forward with alias '*any' and the domain. This is called the catchall forward. As with any other forward, the catchall forward can specify an REA or *bounce. By setting your catchall to bounce, no mail will get through unless it is sent to an alias you specifically added.

What does *bounce mean?

*bounce is a special value that can be specified instead of an REA. It means that that rather than forward a mail sent to one of your aliases to your REA, the mail should be bounced, meaning it will appear to the sender that the alias does not exist (Technically, the sending mail server receives the error '550 User unknown')

Why not just delete an alias instead of setting it to bounce?

The alias would be required to bounce if your catchall was set to forward. Or, you might want to keep track of what you are bouncing or be able to set the alias to forward in the future without having to re-add the alias.

Can I have multiple real addresses (REA"s)?

Yes, you can define multiple mailboxes as the target of forwards. As one example, you might forward all email coming from mailing lists into one mailbox.

End of FAQ