Fastmail partners with Bitwarden

[pjwalsh]

Fastmail Blog, Sep 13
Masked Email Now in More Places With Bitwarden Integration


https://bitwarden.com/about
https://bitwarden.com/products/personal
https://bitwarden.com/products/send

[TenFour]

Thanks for the link. I still am uncertain as to how much you gain by going to the trouble to create unique email addresses for every login, and I am 100% certain that down the road some people are going to encounter huge hassles when one of these services goes belly up or gets hacked somehow redirecting all your emails to some hacker. Sure, there is some spam prevention by using a unique email address for things like newsletters and forums, but I wouldn't want to use anything but a rock-solid normal address for something like banking or my password manager itself. If all your unique emails route through Company B then you are now dependent on them staying in business and managing your email security. In general, I find that email security is enhanced greatly by minimizing the hops your mail takes to get to your inbox.

[hadaso]

Originally Posted by TenFour

... I wouldn't want to use anything but a rock-solid normal address for something like banking ...

If the service just generates for you addresses in your own domain and you have a list of those addresses, then they're just rock-solid normal addresses, and you can take then with you to whatever mail provider hosts your domain. I use a unique address with my bank and with other financial services I use (like insurance) and the main benefit I see is that if I ever receive some well executed phishing attempt from my bank then it will be coming to the wrong address.

[TenFour]

I use a unique address with my bank and with other financial services I use (like insurance) and the main benefit I see is that if I ever receive some well executed phishing attempt from my bank then it will be coming to the wrong address.

Sure, but I avoid this problem by never clicking on links in emails from important things like my bank. Instead I open a new browser window and go direct to the bank to check the message. Even if you use a unique address with the bank that address could have been hacked or leaked by your bank, so it is still prudent to do what I do and login directly to your bank account. I find it tedious to check every email header to make sure who sent the email and what address it was sent to. One thing that can help with this in Gmail is I have labels applied to certain addresses so at a glance I can see what address something was sent to. Also, I would avoid at all costs allowing any and all email addresses to be sent to your domain--avoid the catchall!

[placebo]

Originally Posted by TenFour

Thanks for the link. I still am uncertain as to how much you gain by going to the trouble to create unique email addresses for every login, and I am 100% certain that down the road some people are going to encounter huge hassles when one of these services goes belly up or gets hacked somehow redirecting all your emails to some hacker. Sure, there is some spam prevention by using a unique email address for things like newsletters and forums, but I wouldn't want to use anything but a rock-solid normal address for something like banking or my password manager itself. If all your unique emails route through Company B then you are now dependent on them staying in business and managing your email security. In general, I find that email security is enhanced greatly by minimizing the hops your mail takes to get to your inbox.

Your email isn't being routed through another company. It still is delivered directly to Fastmail. The masked email feature just simplifies the creation of a unique alias to use for registering at some website.

[TenFour]

Your email isn't being routed through another company. It still is delivered directly to Fastmail. The masked email feature just simplifies the creation of a unique alias to use for registering at some website.

True for FM, but Bitwarden also allows you to create additional alias addresses via SimpleLogin, AnonAddy, and Firefox Relay. Lets say that you decide to move on from Fastmail for some reason--maybe they jack the price up--now you've got to migrate hundreds of email aliases to some other service and make sure they are all working. I have 347 logins in Bitwarden.

[bertradio]

At the moment, this does not seem very useful.

1. It only works with the Bitwarden vault, not with the Firefox extension. So the vault needs to be opened each time.

2. While it generates an address and adds it to Fastmail, there does not appear to be a way to add the description within Bitwarden. So one needs to go into Fastmail settings to do that. If one needs to go to Fastmail settings anyway, what's the advantage of the Bitwarden connection?

Or do I misunderstand?

[SideshowBob]

Originally Posted by bertradio

2. While it generates an address and adds it to Fastmail, there does not appear to be a way to add the description within Bitwarden. So one needs to go into Fastmail settings to do that. If one needs to go to Fastmail settings anyway, what's the advantage of the Bitwarden connection?

I've not used it, but if bitwarden is associating the address with a site, and is searchable, it's arguably unnecessary to document the addresses in Fastmail.

[bertradio]

Originally Posted by SideshowBob

I've not used it, but if bitwarden is associating the address with a site, and is searchable, it's arguably unnecessary to document the addresses in Fastmail.

True... but for clarity sake I like to have all the masked email addresses with a description in one place in Fastmail settings.

[hadaso]

Originally Posted by bertradio

True... but for clarity sake I like to have all the masked email addresses with a description in one place in Fastmail settings.

That's why I prefer the do it yourself approach: I embed the info within the email address. Then I don't need to write it down anywhere.

[trikotret]

Originally Posted by TenFour

True for FM, but Bitwarden also allows you to create additional alias addresses via SimpleLogin, AnonAddy, and Firefox Relay. Lets say that you decide to move on from Fastmail for some reason--maybe they jack the price up--now you've got to migrate hundreds of email aliases to some other service and make sure they are all working. I have 347 logins in Bitwarden.

If you have catch all domain setup, you just take your domain with you to another provider. I dont see it being a hassle. Regarding, its just a password manager service that you export your data and go somewhere else.

[Grhm]

Originally Posted by hadaso

That's why I prefer the do it yourself approach: I embed the info within the email address. Then I don't need to write it down anywhere.

Like you, I also favour a do-it-yourself approach to this, but I'm not sold on your system. There are occasions when you want to be taken seriously, and it doesn't give a good impression if you use an address that is patently a disposable 'one-off'. I prefer to use a more cryptic approach, so that every e-mail I send comes from an address that's snappy and could plausibly be my one-and-only e-mail address. I've also found that the key to addresses (which I maintain as a Fastmail 'note') is a useful place to store information and remarks about websites, people and organisations.

[gardenweed]

I'm not keen on having a multitude of aliases.
I do have a few and I keep an index in one of my FM Notes to remind me why they were created.
My gut feel is that down the track a bit, having a large number of alias' is going to cause me a headache, and will be difficult to unwind should I want to.
Also, the idea of tying the system into a 3rd party application that is necessary for its functionality is just a straight up show stopper for me.

[emoore]

This "solution" only works for webmail and seems a very complex alternative to just using plus addressing (which also works if you use a email client instead of webmail).

It would be nice if Fastmail occasionally added a feature that helps customers who use a email client on a PC. Its been so long I can't remember the last time they did so.

[placebo]

Originally Posted by gardenweed

Also, the idea of tying the system into a 3rd party application that is necessary for its functionality is just a straight up show stopper for me.

1Password and Bitwarden aren't necessary to use the feature. Those applications just added support to streamline the process of using it.

Originally Posted by emoore

This "solution" only works for webmail and seems a very complex alternative to just using plus addressing (which also works if you use a email client instead of webmail).

I don't know how widespread the problem is anymore, but one problem with plus addressing is that some sites reject those addresses as invalid. A second issue that's perhaps more relevant these days is that it exposes your real email address whereas masked email doesn't.

Years ago, I used to use subdomain addressing so I could give each site a unique email address, but I didn't do that for long. It was more hassle than it was worth.