Opinions: email forwarding w/ Bigfoot.com?

I have been using the Bigfoot.com free email forwarding service for years and generally like it even though it has become more and more restricted over time. I was wondering if others have an opinion about it or know of an alternative that is better.

BTW, I already have a Gmail account, so I am not looking for that as a suggested alternative. I have Bigfoot set to forward to my Gmail, so I use both. If Gmail proves to be as good as I think it will, then a forwarding account may not be such a necessity, but it has already saved me countless address changes over the years, so I would like to stick with it.

One reason I am asking for opinions is that there may be problems with Bigfoot that I am completely unaware of. For instance, if there are messages that are being delayed or completely lost.

Another issue is that sometimes I set friends up with one of these accounts and generally speaking, the women don't like the "[email protected]" address.

I just thought I would throw this question out into the Cafe because there is such a wealth of knowledge here.

have you thought about getting a domain name?

depending upon where you register it, they can come with email forwarders.

check out registerfly.com/info/benefits.php.

and if you choose the domain name wisely, your friends won't complain. /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif

btw, you can have more than one gmail account. besides my primary gmail, I use another just for signups and special offers.

Hey Lurker,

I've also used bigfoot for quite a few years for forwarding. It has remained free, but the rules are more restrictive, and they are often sending emails selling addon products. That makes good business sense, of course, and many people probably can use those services. While it helps me now and then for people to catch up with my email addy changes, I am using yahoo and gmail for my personal email, and try to give all my acquaintances the new email addreses. I'm going to keep bigfoot, but don't advertise it too much these days, it's enough for my friends to keep up with my yahoo, gmail and work addresses that I don't add bigfoot to the mix anymore.

daloosh

I have had a Bigfoot account for about five years. I just let my premium BF account expire a few months ago. Their business model is very clever but in the end, they are still a SPAM trap.

Their free accounts give you almost no tools to fight SPAM. Their premium accounts don't give you much more. When I used them the premium accounts had manual SPAM filters which were very basic. They had one more advanced option for more money which was BrightMail, which is nothing to write home about.

A good email provider should have EVERY tool available and be ready to get the new tools as the SPAM scene continues to evolve. BF isn't set up to use 'regular expressions' in their filters, no SpamAssassin, no bayesian filters, and no whitelisting, blacklisting or goldlisting of addresses.

In short Bigfoot is hopelessly behind the curve in providing tools to fight SPAM and that pretty much makes them a SPAM trap, because they are always there to try to sell you bigger premium packages (so you will have less trouble dealing with all of the SPAM that they won't help you get rid of /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/grin.gif ). As someone already mentioned, BF will SPAM it's own free and Premium account holders ITSELF!

While it would seem that an email forwarder might have some privacy tools for its users, this is not the case. No killing or self-expiring aliases, actually, no aliases at all. No use of multiple domain names. I used their option to pay for services by Postal Money Order for it's added security/privacy but both of the times I used it, it took SIX WEEKS and numerous emails to get them to update my account.

I don't even think that their free accounts are worth the hassle.

I am also a bigfoot veteran. I no longer use the service as I now utilize a "paid version" of yahoo mail. It suits my needs just fine. You get unlimited "disposable" email addresses for the purpose of sign-ups, mailing lists, etc. Once one of the addys starts getting "spammed" I simply delete it. The main account is never given out to anyone, including family members. I simply don't use it. The main addy exists solely to serve as a "placeholder" for my account. I have created a disposable addy solely for family purposes. If that is ever violated, I simply delete it and create another. I haven't had any spam on the family addy for about 3 yrs, and that is due in part, to my diligence in divulging its address. Everywhere I need to supply an email address, I simply supply one of the many throw-away addresses that I have created.

PS. I have also tried a service known as Mailblocks which uses the challenge/response methodology of filtering spam. So far it has worked for me a little over four years, and I haven't rec'd any spam on that account, ever. The best service I've utilized to date.

Regards,

Abbie

Lurker, go to http://www.e4ward.com/ and look over their site. It's much more functional than Bigfoot, offering forwarding and disposable aliases, giving it excellent antispam characteristics.

You might also be interested in http://www.despammed.com

If you're willing to pay a little each year, but don't want to go with your own domain, I'd definately recommend http://www.pobox.com

Thank you all for a wealth of good suggestions. I definitely have some options to look into. One comment I would add is that I have always thought Bigfoot was pretty effective at filtering spam for me. Maybe I have just been lucky with those addresses. In any case, I will look into the other options. Thanks!

[edit and update: after a closer look, my bigfoot addresses are forwarding a fair amount of spam, but it was getting filtered at my forwarding address, so I didn't see it and assumed bigfoot was catching it.

Also, I am starting to use the e4ward service mentioned above by Emptah and so far I really like it.]