Now you can track your e-mail, for free!

E-mail has become the main tool of personal communications today, second only to the phone call. Of course, it comes with its own set of problems. Can't be sure if the other person has actually read your e-mail or is simply stalling? Annoyed by all the spam that can't be filtered out?

Are you afraid of sending a mail that might come back to haunt you? Here's how to get around it all, for free.

Find out if your e-mail's been read or not, where it was read and if it's being forwarded

That's what SpyPig.com helps you do. SpyPig works by generating an image which you must copy-paste into the e-mail. When the recipient opens it, the tracking image will automatically be downloaded from the SpyPig server triggering a your-e-mail-has-been opened notification, which will be sent to you. This notification will be sent to you whenever someone opens your e-mail.

It will also tell you where your e-mail was opened by looking up the IP address of the recipient.

Note, however, that it isn't foolproof.

It doesn't work if either you or the other person is using a plain text or rich text based e-mail client (which hardly anyone uses: none of the popular web-mail services fall in this category). It also fails if your e-mail gets spammed, if a firewall stops the recipient from downloading the image etc.

Gmail, for example, doesn't automatically download the image but requests confirmation first.

One of the SpyPig images is simply a white space which will not be immediately visible to the reader of the e-mail, keeping your tracking quiet.   

Another excellent free service is WhoReadMe.com.

It's even simpler than SpyPig: you just have to add '.whoreadme.com' to the e-mail ID of the person you sent it to and the web site will provide you a wide range of information about the person who reads the e-mail.

readnotify.com and didtheyreadit.com are two paid services.

Check out: The all new Gadgets and Gaming page

Reader invite

Are you a gadget/gaming wizard/afficianado? Would you like to write on gadgets, gaming, the Internet, software technologies, OSs and the works for us? Send us a sample of your writing to gadgetsandgaming@rediffmail.com with the subject as 'I'm a tech wizard/afficianado' and we will get in touch with you.

Trace your e-mail address without replying using social networking web sites

If you've received e-mail from someone you don't know and want to find out more before you strike up a correspondence, Facebook is a great place to start. It allows you to search by e-mail and you can probably see the person's photos etc if s/he doesn't have very strict privacy settings.

Most people use the same ID in multiple places. Knowem.com is a service that searches a wide array of web sites from twitter to wordpress and tumblr. It's meant for brands but you can use it to your own advantage.

spokeo.com is a service that aggregates data from a wide variety of services including government censuses, social networking web sites and mailing lists.

It's very comprehensive. It will hunt down blogs, photos, IDs on social networking web sites including YouTube and even authenticate your e-mail. You can test it out by typing in your e-mail and seeing what it throws up about you.

Note that for details, you have to sign up with a paid account. pipl.com is another web site that aggregates data and is meant to help find people.

Check out: The all new Gadgets and Gaming page

Reader invite

Are you a gadget/gaming wizard/afficianado? Would you like to write on gadgets, gaming, the Internet, software technologies, OSs and the works for us? Send us a sample of your writing to gadgetsandgaming@rediffmail.com with the subject as 'I'm a tech wizard/afficianado' and we will get in touch with you.

Beat spammers with a temporary e-mail ID

Most web sites require you to have a valid e-mail ID in order to sign up for a service. Unfortunately this is how e-mail IDs end up on lists that are subsequently sold to spammers. There are many web sites that allow you to beat this system by creating e-mail ID that only lasts for a brief amount of time -- just enough to receive the e-mail and click on the activation link.

10minutemail.com, for example, gives you an e-mail ID the moment you turn up at the site, with the inbox displayed right below it. The ID lasts for 10 minutes, although you can get more time with one click.

Mailinator is one of the top-rated web sites for spam-beating e-mail IDs. In order to create an e-mail ID you just send an e-mail to the ID you want to create (example send an e-mail to eatspam@mailinator and the ID is automatically made). Note that these IDs are not secure -- there is no password protection of any sort.

Anyone can come around later and use it. Note that you don't have to create an inbox before hand -- when you submit it to a web site or discussion board, an inbox will be generated when they send e-mail. Spam.la works on very similar principles.

MailExpire.com stands out by offering inboxes that are password protected and forward e-mail to you. Your inbox can be programmed so that it 'expires' after anywhere from 12 hours to a year -- allowing you to receive e-mail from a person for a limited period of time. SpamFree24 also creates inboxes that expire after a few hours.

Check out: The all new Gadgets and Gaming page

Reader invite

Are you a gadget/gaming wizard/afficianado? Would you like to write on gadgets, gaming, the Internet, software technologies, OSs and the works for us? Send us a sample of your writing to gadgetsandgaming@rediffmail.com with the subject as 'I'm a tech wizard/afficianado' and we will get in touch with you.

Burn after reading

While it is impossible to retract an actual e-mail after it has been delivered into someone's inbox, there are web sites that claim to be able to recall e-mail after it's been sent, and causes an e-mail to self destruct etc.

BigString.com is one. BigString works by creating an image of your message and sending the image link rather than the message itself.

The recipients e-mail service must go to the BigString server to retrieve this message (which is how most e-mail tracking software works.) If you 'self-destruct' a message or edit it the image on the server is changed or destroyed, thus causing the message to be unreadable.

Note that the software is imperfect: during testing, the message wasn't destroyed until we logged out of our gmail accounts and back in. Presumably, Google cached the image -- storing it locally -- rather than checking with BigString.

Some services, instead of giving you an e-mail ID with such powers creates a web page or link that will exist for a limited time or limited number of views.

DestructingMessage.com creates a link valid for a single view of a message that destroys itself in a fixed amount of time ranging from 15 seconds to 5 minutes. Privnote.com creates page which destroys itself after the reader has navigated away from it (and informs you when this happens). You are expected to send these links to someone by e-mail, IM etc.

SelfDestructMessage.com will send the message for you and let you know when it was read.

Note that none of the methods here are perfect at preventing the existence of a record. The simple process of taking a photo of the screen or using Window's Print Screen function can make a record. In the cases where the message is displayed as text, copy-pasting will ensure survival.

Check out: The all new Gadgets and Gaming page

Reader invite

Are you a gadget/gaming wizard/afficianado? Would you like to write on gadgets, gaming, the Internet, software technologies, OSs and the works for us? Send us a sample of your writing to gadgetsandgaming@rediffmail.com with the subject as 'I'm a tech wizard/afficianado' and we will get in touch with you.