May 2, 2010

Who is mailing you?

Pishing. Scamming. Spamming. And what not! Email accounts are easy targets of spammers and scammers from time immemorial. Most of the email service providers have successfully developed spam fighting systems that automatically send junk mail  into your spam folder or trash them. Yet, spammers find a way around that system and get into your inbox. Worse still, some of them impersonate people you know and trick you into downloading spyware, sending money or joining scam websites. How we wish we had some way to identify the person mailing us? There is a way you can do that now.

Rapportive!

Rapportive is a browser extension that integrates itself into your Gmail Account and it works on both Chrome and Firefox. It does a very simple thing! It shows you who mailed you the mail you are reading. For example, if you receive a mail from me and you have Rapportive installed on your browser, it will show you my photograph and any information available on web about me. It will show you links to my Facebook Account, Twitter Account, Linkedin Account etc. This helps you make sure that the mail from me is in fact from me and no one else.

You may not get the information right away for all email addresses. They have just launched Rapportive and its in the process of accumulating information on people. But I am sure, the service will improve over a period of time as you keep using it and Rapportive will be able to give you exact information about people you interact with.

Imagine receiving a mail from someone, claiming that it is from your friend stranded on an island and he needs help. Rapportive will help you understand if that mail is really from your friend. All you need to do is [if you are using gmail], to click here and install the extension on your Firefox Browser or Chrome Browser!

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