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From the department of Things I Should Have Done Sooner, I have finally discovered the magic of email aliases. Aliases are kind of like alternative email addresses, except when email is sent to an alias, it still arrives in your main inbox. Use them in conjunction with filters and folders and you’ve got a powerful way to organize incoming messages. While email aliases aren’t a new concept, I’ve been leaning into them lately as I experiment with migrating from Gmail to a new email provider. Now I wish I’d been doing it sooner. Here’s why. This story first appeared in Advisorator, Jared’s weekly tech advice newsletter. Sign up to learn new tech tricks every Tuesday. Email aliases, explained If you’re using Gmail, iCloud.com, or Outlook.com, creating an alias is easy. Whenever you’re inputting your email address into a form, enter it like usual but add a + sign and some extra text before the @ sign. For example, instead of yourname@gmail.com, you could use yourname+expenses@gmail.com for work-related purchases, or yourname+newsletters@gmail.com when signing up for newsletters. The +expenses and +newsletters are aliases for your actual address. When emails are sent to those aliased addresses, they’ll still end up in your regular inbox like normal, but the “To:” field will be addressed to the alias. If you then set up custom filters for those aliased “To:” addresses, you can automatically sort new emails as they arrive. The process for each mail provider is a bit different, but in Gmail it looks like this: Click the search box, then hit the More Search Options button. In the “To:” field, enter a plus-address, such as yourname+newsletters@gmail.com. Click Create Filter. Under “Apply the label,” create one called Newsletters. Check Skip the inbox. Filtering a “+newsletters” alias in Gmail.Jared Newman / Foundry Now, every email sent to yourname+newsletters@gmail.com will be assigned the “Newsletters” label. (For help setting up filters in Outlook or iCloud, see Microsoft’s and Apple’s documentation.) Plus-addresses also work with Exchange, Proton, and Fastmail. You may also be able to create aliases with a custom domain if your mail provider supports it. (For instance, my cordcutterweekly@jarednewman.com and advisorator@jarednewman.com email addresses both route to the same inbox.) Unfortunately, AOL mail doesn’t support plus-addresses, nor do major ISP mail services such as Comcast Email and Spectrum Email. Yahoo offers a “Temporary Email Address” feature, but you have to set them up through the Settings menu, and you can only create up to three of them without a paid subscription. It’s all in how you use them Email filters in ProtonJared Newman / Foundry Why wasn’t I using alias email addresses sooner? For a long time, I’ve been reliant on Gmail’s Categories feature, which automatically sorts email into tabs such as “Promotions,” “Social,” and “Forums.” That won’t be an option if I move away from Gmail, but aliases and filters accomplish the same goal with much more flexibility. With newsletters, for instance, I’ve started signing up with separate aliases for daily and weekly publications, so that the news-focused dailies don’t crowd out the more magazine-like weeklies. I can also have separate aliases for business and personal expenses, plus an alias for the Slickdeals alerts that I get throughout the day. In all cases, the idea is to keep unimportant emails separated from my main inbox, so I only see them when I’m ready to deal with them. Using aliases allows me to do that with more granularity than Gmail’s Categories ever offered. Email aliases vs. masked email Plus-addresses and custom domain aliases still aren’t a substitute for masked email addresses, which are unique for each sender and don’t reveal any part of your real email address. With masked email providers, such as as Ironvest and DuckDuckGo, you can easily block senders with one or two clicks. These services are also better for privacy because they keep your true email address hidden. (With plus-addresses, the ad industry is already working on ways to strip away everything after the plus for tracking purposes.) By contrast, email aliases are worth using when you trust the sender but you want to control where their emails appear. Start using them in earnest and you may be surprised by the possibilities. This story first appeared in Advisorator, Jared’s weekly tech advice newsletter. Sign up to learn new tech tricks every Tuesday. Read...

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You know about captcha tests, right? The anti-bot checks that can be found all over the internet, usually when you log into accounts or post comments? The picture puzzles and mysterious symbol sequences that are supposed to weed out the bots from humans? Turns out, those captcha tests have been pretty useful for a while now. Modern bots have long been able to outsmart many captcha tests, and it’s getting worse thanks to the proliferation of AI. So, why are there still so many captchas on the web? Apparently, they serve a different purpose now. Instead of identifying and blocking bots, they’re being used to collect user data, according to a YouTube channel named Chuppl (spotted by Techspot). The deceptive nature of captchas According to experts, newer captchas collect a lot of data about the users who solve them. In addition to your browser, captchas also know your IP address and even the VPN service you’re using. Anyone surfing with a VPN runs the risk of being blocked sooner than even some bots. This is a problem because you probably didn’t even know that interacting with a captcha transmits data. You’re simply led to believe that you’re just being tested to prove you aren’t a bot. How deceptive. Google’s reCAPTCHA under fire According to a video posted by YouTube channel Chuppl, Google’s reCAPTCHA is especially problematic. Allegedly, reCAPTCHA v2 and v3 aren’t designed to fend off bots at all — instead, their main objective is to collect data from anyone who tries to solve them. Not only does reCAPTCHA collect your browser and IP address, it also stores info relating to your browser history, cookies, and more. All of that data is collected and sold to other companies. By checking off an innocuous captcha box, you’re passing on sensitive data without the ability to reject its collection. Experts estimate the value of the data collected in this way at around $898 billion, which points to just how lucrative the captcha data business can be. Data protectionists are calling for captchas to be abolished. Not only do they no longer fulfill their stated purpose, they also harm the user experience on websites and provide a gateway for hackers. Further reading: How does a captcha know I’m not a robot? Read...

At a glanceExpert`s Rating Pros File backup and sync, disk imaging, disaster recovery Clean, attractive interface Excellent performance Online storage support Cons Wouldn’t connect to Google Drive online System recovery plugin was non-functional and recovery disc requires separate download and Rufus Pricey Our Verdict Handy Backup might’ve garnered an Editors’ Choice award had it been entirely glitch-free and a bit easier to learn. We still say “take a look” as the mainstay features are top-notch. Price When Reviewed This value will show the geolocated pricing text for product undefined Best Pricing Today Best Prices Today: Novosoft Handy Backup 8.5 Pro Retailer Price Novosoft $89 View Deal Price comparison from over 24,000 stores worldwide Product Price Price comparison from Backmarket Handy Backup Pro is clean, efficient, and easy to use — once you figure it out. In its professional version it’s also one of the most capable backup software suites I’m aware of. I was impressed, and would’ve remained so if it weren’t for several non-fatal bumps in the road. Read on to learn more, and then see our roundup of the best Windows backup software for comparison. What are Handy Backup’s features? Basically, Handy Backup is a straightforward-looking utility that can perform file backup, file sync, as well as disk imaging. That puts it in the upper tier when it comes to capabilities. Handy Backup 8.5 puts its three main tasks front and center. Most of the options you find with other programs are present: restore, compression, encryption (256-bit AES is max), scheduling as granular as an hour, before and after commands that may be executed and even run on device insertion. Note that when I said Handy Backup supports online storage, I mean both as source and destination. Many backup programs only support the latter. Indeed, I was able to sync a folder from Dropbox to OneDrive with ease. Other supported services include Amazon S3, S3 compatibles, Google Drive (local only), OneDrive for Business, Dropbox for Business, Yandex Disk, Mail.ru Hotbox and Icebox, VK Cloud, Backblaze, and Box. 4Shared is supported, but for some reason is under the “Other” heading. Handy Backup also supports network locations, WebDAV, and FTP/FTPS/SFTP. I said Handy Backup is easy to use, but it’s not intuitive in every aspect. Each job in Handy backup is handled by a plugin. Fine, but it threw me off a hair, as it puts the imaging functions (disk/system recovery) under the source selections, when they’re normally treated as a methodology. In other words, instead of selecting an imaging job, you select Disk Clone from the source menu, then either disk image or system recovery. You’re then presented with a list of local disks and partitions. Make sure you only select what you want, because by default the program will make images of the drive AND partitions if you simply select the drive. Handy Backup is easy to use, but it’s not intuitive in every aspect. The kicker here is that you must run the program as Administrator for this function to work. There’s actually a button to reboot in admin mode, but you’re better off setting this in file properties/compatibility for HandyBackup8.exe. Why Novosoft doesn’t set this property for you in lieu of the button I don’t know. Handy Backup 8.5 running from its disaster recovery disc. Handy Backup does offer a disaster recovery disk, however — the Create Recovery Drive command in the File Menu simply directs you to instructions on the company’s website to download the .iso. At this point you can use Rufus or another boot disc creator. Novosoft and I both recommend Rufus. How much does Handy Backup cost? Once upon a time there was a free version of Handy Backup. No more. But there is a 30-day trial of the program available. Beyond that, the standard version is $39, the professional version (which adds the imaging functions) reviewed here is $89, the small business version that backs up various business software and databases is $249, and there is a server version for $487 that adds Linux and remote functionality. See the the complete feature chart to compare options. In terms of value, Handy Backup is facing a lot of competition in the form of R-Drive Image, Acronis True Image, Easeus ToDo Backup, and others available at similar or lower price points. How does Handy Backup perform? With files, Handy Backup was very quick. Imaging? Err… I spotted one error right off the bat, with the program claiming it was about to copy three files of 1.82TB total size. In actuality, it was three files totaling about 10GB on a disk that was only 1TB in size, which the program subsequently noticed. Handy Backup mistook the amount of data to be backed up. That said, the operation only took about three minutes, as fast as anything I’ve tried. However, this was only after I discovered that, by default, the selection of a drive creates images of the drive, and the separate partitions, which for some reason totaled well over 80GB, took 34 minutes. Be careful to deselect redundant entries when you use this plugin. While you can create images using Clone Disk for system recovery, the dedicated System Recovery plugin (show below), was non-functional. Novosoft was seemingly aware of this and recommended using Clone Disk. My advice to Novosoft? If something is known not to work — don’t include it. Sadly, this plugin didn’t work, simply spinning its wheels in an endless loop. I also found the program frustratingly slow to respond when I wanted to kill operations. While not putting escape checks in a loop can speed operations, it can also result in a lot of time wasted performing operations that the user wants to cancel. I understand this logic during the delicate restore operation, where it must complete or risk data loss, but not during backups where cancelling won’t damage anything. On that note, the program could deliver a bit more information such as, “You will not be able to access the drive being restored from an image until the process is complete.” Instead, it expects you to understand that. Fair enough, but there are users out there who won’t. The only bug that truly irked me was Handy Backup being denied access to Google Drive, despite my successful log-on. Other services were fine, but that’s a very, very common online storage repository. You must install Google Drive and back up the local copy. Handy Backup 8.5 connected to all the online storage services I tried besides Google Drive. Should you buy Handy Backup? I quite like Handy Backup with its myriad capabilities and top-notch performance. I even grew to enjoy its foibles — once I sussed them out. 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