Mailinator has a new design

by aaronbrethorst • 13 years ago

128 54 13 years ago

Black text on a vibrant green background is not very readable, unfortunately.

androidb• 13 years ago

My point too, the text is very unreadable. On the homepage they have the green background and white text with some effects, you barely can read it before your eyes start to hurt.

icebraining• 13 years ago

Apparently it's just one part of a bigger plan, that includes adding paid tiers: http://mailinator.blogspot.pt/2013/05/mailinator-is-for-huma...

Personally, I just have to thank the creator for a great service that I used all the time (until I got my own domain). And for his technical blog posts: http://mailinator.blogspot.pt/2007/01/architecture-of-mailin...

bsimpson• 13 years ago

Nice home page (way less ugly than the old one).

Looks like it's based on Angular. Notice how the template code ({{email.from}} and {{email.subject}})flashes before the data models load on the inbox page.

diggan• 13 years ago

Nice looking but the code is shit. They're using Angular but they're not doing angular stuff. They are basically using the controllers and doing jQuery shit in it. Unbelievable.

Sourcecode for the inbox: https://gist.github.com/VictorBjelkholm/6191838

babby• 13 years ago

Quite believable. The Angular Way™ is unintuitive to the uninitiated.

pacoverdi• 13 years ago

Don't want to point the finger at anyone but... https://twitter.com/paultyma/status/361849144161218561

mcrider• 13 years ago

Great redesign! I've used mailinator for years but honestly the quality of the old site made it seem almost like a shady operation, like they might mine incoming emails for personal data or passwords. This looks much more professional.

pravda• 13 years ago

I liked the old site better. Gratuitous AJAX annoys me.

Heck, (just about) all AJAX annoys me. And what's wrong with black text? we all gotta be gray now?

The new site is all "look how clever we are - stuff moves and bounces!" The old site didn't call attention to itself.

lamby• 13 years ago

... but does it convert better?

blackdogie• 13 years ago

The mini scroll down on pages like this http://mailinator.com/faq.html are like the 2013 version of blink. Overall a nice clean design. The footer is unreadable though.

user24• 13 years ago

The mini scroll down

Oh god that is soooo cooool! It's nothing like blink. If anything it's like a powerpoint slide transition, only much much subtler. I really like it.

nikcub4• 13 years ago

Argh! noticed that all my links and bookmarklets 404! so that is what it was.

I had a bookmarklet that would generate an email, insert it into the current form and then open a window to mailinator so I can retrieve the confirmation email.

I also had other bookmarkets and links that I used for other things (I am much better at writing software for my own tasks than I am at publishing it)

If you used it in the same way I did, the old URL:

   /maildir.jsp?email={{ email }}

is now

    /inbox.jsp?to={{ email }}

there is no excuse to break URL's, you never know how people are using your product. Not everybody goes to the homepage, fills out a form and presses submit. The entire web can be used as an informal API.

Edit: I can confirm what Amadou says in reply, you can't directly access the mail page anymore. Even after updating URL's it still won't load, it is relying on a token. The way I used the app is now useless.

I don't think the answer to controlling abuse is killing your app for a lot of users

aaronbrethorst• 13 years ago

I think this would be considered 'by design'.

http://mailinator.blogspot.pt/2013/05/mailinator-is-for-huma...

nikcub4• 13 years ago

but I am human!

edit: but thanks for that post, I had missed it. It dramatically changes what Mailinator does and what it means. It is a complete shift in its mission. The in-memory and no logs email service is what originally attracted most users. Dealing with abuse is just part of what happens when you have such a service, ditto with running a Tor exit node.

ExpiredLink3• 13 years ago

A site redesign is in the works (I love it, you'll hate it

Yes! Yet another uninspiring Bootstrap-ed site.

Amadou• 13 years ago

It isn't just a new URL, there is some javascript and cross-site scripting or something. The old mailinator was dead simple - no javascript, no cross-site includes, it just worked with all my security add-on settings like NoScript and RequestPolicy on maximum. Now it doesn't. The inbox just appears to be empty it says "Inbox for:" without a username even though the inbox.jsp?to=foo parameter is set in the URL.

This is a real kick in the gut for me, I've been a happy user for longer than I can remember and now I can't be a user.

When I read the blog entry about an update a month or two ago I figured the guy was smart enough not to fall into this trap of form over function. I've been reading his blog for years and he always struck me as imminently practical. But it looks like my faith was misplaced, he's gone and web2.0ified it when it really did not need it. I think this is the beginning of the end for mailinator.

martinml• 13 years ago

That's weird. I had bookmarked a Mailinator inbox, and apart from doing the change from nikcub's comment, it's working perfectly. It says 'Inbox for: <whatever>' and it seems to work. Maybe it was a temporary bug? Remember Hanlon's razor :)

Edit: oh wow, I totally take that back. I have been banned for abuse for a whole day! I didn't do anything special but access that inbox from my bookmark a couple of times. Here is everything I can see on Mailinator now:

---

Rate Limiter Engaged ! Hi Friendly User!

Unfortunately, your request cannot be processed. Mailinator is committed to providing a valuable service to its users and at the same time, limit abuse of the system.

An automated rate-detection system triggered based on your usage. Please note - programmatic access to Mailinator is prohibited by our Terms of Service (for users that require high-speed programmatic access, please check-out Mailinator Pro which provides proper APIs for such access).

This is a temporary ban and should clear by tomorrow. Continued access attempts today could result in a more permanent ban (please don't do that).

---

denysonique• 13 years ago

The most convenient old way of quickly accessing an inbox was inbox_nickname.mailinator.com -- this still works today.

mmanfrin• 13 years ago

Relevant XKCD: http://xkcd.com/1172/

nostromo2• 13 years ago

I love their privacy policy on the FAQ:

Mailinator's Privacy Policy: THERE IS NO PRIVACY

nikcub4• 13 years ago

That might be amusing, but having my IP address shared with third parties or knowing which jurisdiction the service operates under are serious matters for a lot of users.

Especially the type of users a service like Mailinator attracts.

nostromo2• 13 years ago

Oh yeah, definitely don't trust them for anything sensitive at all. From their old FAQ:

Q: So if the government issued a subpeona to Mailinator to divulge emails or logs, you'd rat me out?
A: Holy crap, yes. I'm not going to jail for you, I have a boyish face and very (very) supple skin.
At this point, Mailinator cooperates with law enforcement when reasonable to do so and at this point has received friendly subpeonas, emails, or calls from the FBI, IRS, Justice department, LAPD, and Scotland Yard.

blowski• 13 years ago

Better to use a service that explicitly says this, rather than burying it on p47 in obscure legalese. If you want more privacy, use a different service.

Trufa• 13 years ago

Renders terribly on mobile, chrome on android device, nexus 4

cantrevealname• 13 years ago

I never understand why most sites that demand sign-up verification emails don't block Mailinator even though Mailinator is obviously well-known among web developers.

It's almost as if there's an unspoken agreement among the cognoscenti that if you're smart enough to use Mailinator, you get a free pass -- we won't force you to hand over a valid email address.

ozh• 13 years ago

A lot of sites forbid the use of mailinator.com email addresses.

Which is completely useless since there are numerous aliases, and you can also point your own domain/subdomain to it and have your own mailinator inbox running on you@spam.mydomain.com

Sami_Lehtinen• 13 years ago

Disinformation, doesn't actually help, if you blacklist based on destination IP and MX entries. Using alternate domain won't help, unless you also run TCP proxy or forwarding SMTP server. Even using different IP and name with light TCP relay proxy, gets revealed during handshake.

Burp, nuff said: "220 mail.mailinator.com ESMTP Postfix"

Also see: https://ssl.trashmail.net/forum/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=5421#p78...

Of course you can add alias to your own mailserver and domain(s) alias to your own mailbox or set forwarding to mailinator. Then it's quite hard to find out if messages are really sent to mailinator or your own real mailbox.

traskjd• 13 years ago

We thought about this for raygun.io. In the end, despite being a an error notication service at our core, we thought it was a bit of a dick move to try and hold off people who used mailinator.

Treat others how you want to be treated: If I wanted to use mailinator to sign up for a service I'd be miffed if they actively blocked it.

ronaldx2• 13 years ago

I don't understand what benefit a site gains from blocking Mailinator?

nirvdrum• 13 years ago

In my experience, Mailinator addresses have only been used as a way to abuse our service or try to keep getting new trial accounts. Of course we have mechanisms to protect against that, but it's still a large amount of cruft we have to deal with and clean up after. The number of paying customers that use Mailinator or started with Mailinator and changed their address afterwards is zero.

gjm11• 13 years ago

1. Some users may provide a real email address instead of a throwaway Mailinator one. The owner of the site can then send email to that address (which might get read and result in money being spent) or sell the email address to some third party.

Now, someone who would prefer to give you a Mailinator email address probably isn't likely to buy whatever you're spamming them with, so the benefit is probably pretty small. But it might be nonzero. (And if you're selling your mailing list to advertisers, of course they won't know how many of the addresses are for people who will ignore their spam.)

2. Requiring a real email address (that takes some effort to acquire) makes the cost of abuse slightly higher. So if you're offering a service people might want to abuse, you may reduce the frequency of abuse a bit by forbidding throwaway email addresses.

madaxe• 13 years ago

Total train wreck in mobile - chrome, iOS. Someone needs to work on their QA!

boyter• 13 years ago

The best thing about mailinator other then the service is the blog posts. There is some seriously interesting hacker reading in there such as,

http://mailinator.blogspot.com.au/2012/02/how-mailinator-com...

http://mailinator.blogspot.com.au/2011/05/notes-from-program...

http://mailinator.blogspot.com.au/2010/02/how-i-sped-up-my-s...

http://mailinator.blogspot.com.au/2007/01/architecture-of-ma...

I think most have hit the front page of HN before but its worth including here for those who have not read them.

modoc3• 13 years ago

Paul Tyma is a very very smart guy! And super nice! I met him when was at Hacker School several years ago.

gnosis• 13 years ago

Here are some other throwaway email address providers that might work as alternatives to mailinator.[1][2][3][4][5][6]

If anyone has any experience with any of these and could comment on how they compare to mailinator, that would be very useful.

[1] http://10minutemail.com/10MinuteMail/index.html

[2] https://anonbox.net/

[3] http://anonymouse.org/anonemail.html

[4] http://trash-mail.com/

[5] http://www.dispostable.com/

[6] https://www.silentsender.com/

mark242• 13 years ago

Here's a gratuitous plug for MailDrop, an open-source version. http://maildrop.cc http://github.com/m242/maildrop

modoc3• 13 years ago

10MinuteMail.com is my site, so I recommend it:) It's a bit more secure, in that there are no shared inboxes, each address is 100% private.

ExpiredLink3• 13 years ago

Some of your translations are confusing.

mzs• 13 years ago

https://www.spamgourmet.com/ in some ways similar

tyilo• 13 years ago

Trashmail has an API, so good for various scripts. If I remember correctly you don't have an inbox, you just forward X messages to another email address, where X by default is 2. After that the email is deleted.

anExcitedBeast• 13 years ago

mailinator is still my favorite, but when I need an alternative I like SharkLasers. http://www.sharklasers.com/

nadaviv• 13 years ago

I like fakemailgenerator. They have multiple domains, and incoming emails are shown almost immediately (very fast email servers and push notifications). http://www.fakemailgenerator.com/

paromi• 13 years ago

I have created a similar site http://www.tempsky.com Tried to make it simple and easy to use

ssafejava• 13 years ago

It's a nice redesign, starting out. I especially like the cloud design up top. I'd just like to throw forward a few comments on it. Please take this as constructive, not as mean criticism.

* Design:

Unfortunately, it reeks of hip design gone too far - green text on a green background, grey text on a grey background, and amateurish construction. Removing the text-shadow alone from the alert boxes makes a big difference in readability.

* Structure:

The angularJS parts have already been addressed in another comment, but the most bizarre part is that there is minimal minification (.min.js versions of jquery & bootstrap, that's it - comments are still intact), no concatenation, and no gzip compression whatsoever.

I think it's easy to forget that jQuery alone is 90KB, bootstrap JS is 30KB, and bootstrap's CSS is ~125KB alone. The site is pretty simple; it could easily be trimmed down into something much faster. The use of jQuery is questionable, the use of bootstrap even more so considering how simple the layout is.

The pubsub module that pushes new inbox data is pretty great though.

* Content:

The content pages look great. The little transitions are nice. I like the new copy as well; it helps cement the point that this is not a serious security product and it should not be considered as such.

Overall, while it's a nice change, it may be a bit more flash than users are actually looking for. The massive assets package makes the actual email page huge - jQuery, Bootstrap, and Angular, just for such a simple page? Combined with web fonts, the total payload is well north of a half meg. Intro transition animations serve to make the perceived time to displayed content even longer.

A second pass with a proficient JS developer and a keen eye for readability would do a lot for this site.

gopher• 13 years ago

and it's broken on mobile. (Android)

yapsody• 13 years ago

nice design.. looks good.. colors, graphics are also good.. nice work

swinglock• 13 years ago

"The inbox you checked last time: " must be stored and retrieved by IP. It gave me someone else's inbox from behind a business NAT.

Mailinator has a new design

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