Many people know the story of the Mars Climate Orbiter that crashed due to a difference in units used by two pieces of software. It’s important when communicating that everyone (or every piece of software) is able to communicate accurately so that mistakes don’t happen.
The Internet is by its nature technical. As such some of the terms that are used can be confused or misused. Sometimes small details can be the difference between something working or not working, or in the case of terminology a problem being understood or misunderstood.
One of the words we often use at Runbox that can cause confusion is “hosting”. There are different kinds of hosting and some sound similar or can easily be misunderstood.
The Runbox app is a Progressive Web App (PWA)—a modern approach to webmail that brings you a fast, app-like experience directly through your phone or tablet. Built using open web technologies, the Runbox PWA delivers the convenience of a mobile app without needing to visit an app store.
With Runbox, you can choose from a wide range of domain names to craft an email address that’s uniquely yours. Whether for personal or professional use, select a domain that complements your name, reflects your brand, highlights your location, or showcases your personality. Make a lasting impression with an email that truly stands out.
Already have a Runbox email account? You can use any of these domain names synonymously with your current email address, with messages automatically delivered to your existing inbox — no extra setup required. If you already own a domain, you can use it to create a new Runbox account or link it to an existing one.
Below, you’ll find a guide to the available domains.
January is often a time when we reassess and reorganize. After the holiday rush and the chaos of the previous year, the start of a new year feels like the perfect moment to take a step back and refocus. For many of us, this often means decluttering our physical spaces—cleaning out closets, sorting through old items, and clearing off countertops. But what about our digital lives?
Spam these days is no joke. Keeping our inboxes tidy can feel like a full-time job, and just when you think you’ve got it under control, an unexpected twist occurs: legitimate emails end up in your Junk folder. Yes, we’re talking about the moment when you realize important messages are hiding away in spam purgatory, thanks to email clients like Apple Mail, Outlook and Thunderbird.
Last week we wrote about a dual spam filter approach using email clients and how to set this up. We also talk about how spam has increased dramatically lately, and the reasons why. Here we look at how legitimate emails can end up in the Junk folder
The Frustration of Missing Emails
We’ve all been there. You’re expecting an important email, maybe a project update or a message from a friend, and it never arrives. You check your inbox—nothing. You start to wonder if they even sent it. Then, on a whim, you dive into your Junk folder, and there they are. Emails you thought were lost, marked as spam by your email client.
But it gets even more frustrating. Sometimes you have already filtered these emails specifically. You added them on your allowlist (what we used to call whitelist) in your Runbox Webmail, meaning you’ve already done the work to ensure they reach your inbox. So, why does your email client override your careful training and send them to Junk anyway?
Many of us continue to face a frustrating challenge: an overwhelming influx of spam emails. This is when spam is more than just a nuisance – it becomes a real problem. Why are some inboxes inundated with spam? We look at why it’s happening and what you can do about it.
Email aliases are great – they help organize emails, reduce spam and protect our identity. But sometimes we need a quick way to create an alias without having to log in to our account to set it up. That’s when we can use plus-addressing, or subaddressing.
You simply add a + to your email address followed by a tag.
Any email sent to a plus-address is delivered to your account as usual. The message is still addressed to the plus-address, and you can use this in various ways to manage your email.
Plus-addressing benefits
Make up addresses on the fly without having to set anything up in your Runbox account.
Works with any email address, alias or domain.
Use a plus-address to identify sites where you used your email address.
Plus-addresses can help hide your main email address.
Use a different tag for each site so that if one has a data leak you know which one it is.
Filter email to specific folders based on the plus-addressing.
Create a filter to delete email to that particular plus address if it starts receiving spam.
Plus-addressing and email aliases are great tools to manage your email. With a Runbox account you get unlimited plus-addressing and 100 email aliases. If you have your own domain name, you get unlimited aliases. Check out this post for more info about aliases.
You can get more details about plus-addressing here.
To learn about how to create email aliases, check out this blog post.
Do you use email aliases? Aliases are a great tool that can help protect your identity, reduce spam, and organize your inbox.
Aliases are alternative email addresses that you can use to separate emails. Instead of using the same address for everything, you set up different aliases for online subscriptions, registrations, newsletters, social media, business contacts and so on. Any category that works for you. You can use your main address for friends and family, or create another alias.
All your aliases are set up under your main email account, and is delivered to your primary inbox. You can even set up filters so that mail is separated into specific folders in your account.
Not only will aliases give you another layer of anonymity, it also gives you control over your information and makes online tracking more difficult. Having aliases can help prevent someone hacking your main email account, and helps protect you from phishing attacks. If one of your aliases starts to receive lots of spam, you can easily delete the alias and set up a new one.
When we go online or use apps, we are being tracked. Companies collect our personal data by tracking us across the web sites we visit. They build profiles on us based on our browsing history and online behavior. They want to sell us their products and services, and the more they know about us the better they can use this data to manipulate our behavior.
You know those ads that pop up everywhere after you looked up something? After you’ve looked up a new car, car ads follow you around all day. You research a vacation to Alaska, and travel ads show up everywhere. This is the result of targeted advertising, which is based on data they collected on you. Some call it surveillance capitalism, and it’s big business.
Privacy is about how your data is collected, processed, stored and used. It’s about maintaining control over your personal information and your identity. Privacy isn’t about hiding secrets, it’s about keeping your personal information safe from people who can do harm.
You may have noticed that you’re getting a lot more spam email lately, which is frustrating and annoying. You diligently go through these emails and add them to your Spam filter, you block the sender, unsubscribe from mailing lists and so on. The spam emails keep coming…
Why it’s happening
When we sign up for web sites we effectively give them permission to use our email. These companies may sell your email address to other companies who will in turn send you spam.
Whenever there is a data breach on a website where you have subscribed to something, email addresses can be repeatedly sold to other spammers. You can check if your email has been been in a breach here: https://haveibeenpwned.com
Spammers use mechanisms that allow their emails to go through the spam filter. They will use valid email addresses such as a @gmail account, create look-alike domains that will look like a legitimate company, or even spoof your own email address because many people whitelist their own address.
Because of AI, spammers and phishers can very quickly create mass campaigns. Previously, spam was often easily spotted because of bad grammar and lack of personalization (goodbye Nigerian prince). Now, spammers use artificial intelligence to make spam and phishing more convincing, and they use social media, online behavior and public information to generate personalized campaigns. The result is that we are bombarded with spam.
