

Ask HN: Alternative for email verification? - bluerail

Just few minutes before I came across this post[1] about how the webapp email verification takes so longer to complete, and it got me thinking the same issues I have been facing for recent time. Not just at the sending end, but at the receiving end..<p>Some webapps doesn&#x27;t let you proceed without verifying your email and I have to wait painfully for the emails to arrive at my inbox, worse - I have one of my email forwarded to another account and if the verification email lands at my old email&#x27;s junk, its done... So, is there any other alternatives? some available workarounds  -<p><i>OAuth &#x2F; OpenID
</i>Allowing the user to continue using the service and let them verify at their convenience<p>Also, rather than confirming via a link which then takes to the webapp for the confirmation, why not confirm them using say a reply email? this way the user doesn&#x27;t have to leave their mailbox (more convenient for a mobile user)<p>Are there any alternatives, or am I just not in the reality?<p>[1] - https:&#x2F;&#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&#x2F;item?id=8427577
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patio11
_Also, rather than confirming via a link which then takes to the webapp for
the confirmation, why not confirm them using say a reply email? this way the
user doesn 't have to leave their mailbox (more convenient for a mobile user)_

Historically, because parsing email is hard, because a _lot_ of reply emails
will fail to include your magic verification token in them, and because (if
you don't use a magic verification token) spoofing email addresses is trivial.

The easier solution is to simply not verify email addresses.

