I'd really like to use the service and in fact I wish I'd been using it forever. But I want to do it right and self host it. It's just, maybe the most complicated thing I've ever seen.
Does it require self hosting your own email server as well? If you already own a domain, does that make the process easier?
is Anon Addy the only service like this? Also I'd love to integrate with bitwarden, so when I create a new account for some website, I can automatically create a new email address. (idk if there's any reason to do this, just think it could be cool)
To piggyback further, I've been wondering if having my own domain would help me get around my double nat issue not allowing me to make reverse proxies.
Thanks in advance to the community!
Edit:
I think I have a solution! Bitwarden actually has these integrations already and it's relatively new. duckduck go just doesn't work. I tried forwardemail and that site is filled with dark patterns so you think the free account is worth a damn until you're already invested time into setting it up. At the last minute it tells you you can't use it with bitwarden on the free account. The others are at least up front about their pricing. forwardemail.net doesn't even have a pricing page. Sending emails from the masked addresses is also paywalled. pretty much all functionality on forwardemail.net is paywalled, but they hide it from you the best they can, so fuck that company.
I spoke too soon. There's no option that isn't paid. So I guess back to self hosting anonaddy
Edit: I finally got duckduckgo email working with bitwarden integration. It now generates a random email for me automatically!
Edit edit: Found a good solution:
There are two solid solutions I think for this problem: Bitwarden + SimpleLogin integration. Ends up being about $40/year. The SimpleLogin integration is more limited as it just generates a generic hash. Pass gives you more flexibility - it adds the domain followed by a hash. It's cheaper by a few bucks if you pay per year.
or
Proton Pass ($48/year, or $36/year if paying for 2 years, or if you have proton unlimited ($8/mo), it's included What' nice is that the email address alias generator is built in and has a lot more options. It's cheaper if you pay for 2 years or already have proton unlimited. Both have stellar track records.
May depend what you want and where (location can matter a little bit for latency critical stuff, but streaming video won't care), and what operating system you would run on it. The Hetzner ARM servers are pretty cheap for what you get (and it looks like they include 20TB of bandwidth). I've been pretty happy with Lunanode. I think people often look here for deals: https://lowendbox.com/ they often recommend Racknerd boxes… I think there's some affiliation with Racknerd and lowendbox.com, but I threw something on a Racknerd machine recently and have had a good experience so far. You may want to do some research if you want to send mail directly from these machines. Not everybody allows it (sometimes you just have to ask), and I hear tell that sometimes you can end up with an IP somebody spammed with before with a bad reputation.
I actually settled my email thing. I really just wanted an email masking/email aliasing service and proton pass has a really robust one built in. I believe it's SimpleLogin backed since Proton bought them recently. It's a great integration, now when I sign up for any website it genereates .@passmail.net or something like that. Turns out lots of the premier pw managers have integration with email masking now.
Thanks a million for all your advice! I think I have a solid way forward for my double nat issue. I have a solid basis for research on this now. You rock :)