Those who live an active life on the network notice that sites with different themes and purposes often request a phone number for registration, newsletters, sending order confirmation, etc. But what if there is no mobile at hand, there are communication problems, do you want have a second account, or just do not want the site to bother you with periodic SMS mailings? There is a way out - and this is a temporary phone number. About what features and advantages it has, as well as where you can get it, we will tell in this material.
What is a temporary phone and how is it useful
A temporary or virtual phone number is a service for receiving incoming SMS messages (and sometimes voice calls) to a "fake" phone number, from where this information is forwarded to real recipient numbers. For non-commercial purposes, a considerable range of resources provides a temporary telephone for free, but if you get it for business, you will have to pay for the service.
What are virtual numbers used for? Consider the most common cases:
- registration of the second profile in social networks;
- confirmation of registration on some thematic sites;
- indication of the phone number for the promotion (so that in the future the addressee does not bother with annoying mailings);
- when registering a mailbox;
- to receive instant confirmation when ordering in online markets;
- to improve anonymity, eliminate the possibility of surveillance of Internet scammers.
But be careful - a service that provides a temporary phone number for receiving SMS should also not be trusted with personal data. If the code, login or password should come to you in the message, then the message should not contain information about the sending site. Otherwise, after registration, you need to urgently change the "login-password" pair.
Along with a temporary telephone for SMS, a number of services provide one-time mailboxes. By sending an email in this way, you are guaranteed to hide your IP, location and other information that can be used against you from the recipient.
This concludes the introductory part and proceeds to the practical one - consider a number of reliable services where you can get a temporary phone for free.
Twilio
Quite a popular service focusing on the provision of IP-telephony services. Most of his offers are paid, but to get a temporary phone for SMS, just register a trial account. This is done simply:
- On the main page of the site, click on the "Sign Up" button.
- Next, you need to enter information about yourself, email address, come up with a password for your account, register your real phone number.
- Duplicate in a special window the code that you will receive in SMS, then click on "Get you ...".
- By default, the service will offer you a number that refers to the United States with a set of numbers - Russian, Ukrainian and Belarusian phone numbers may simply not be in the database. It is only possible to change the program selection to another country.
- Do not forget to indicate in “Capabilities” why you need a number for receiving SMS, since not all provided contacts by default support such a function.
Textnow
The main advantage of this resource is that it allows you to get for free not a temporary phone number, but a permanent one. It is also not only an online service, but also an application for popular smartphone platforms. Your only usage fee here is viewing ads.
Creating an account with TextNow is easy. But, as practice shows, the service stubbornly does not want to register residents in the CIS. It’s easy to “trick” it - you need to use a proxy server with US IP.
All messages that you will be sent to the number provided by the service, you can find in the tab "Conversionals".
Countrycode.org
A good service that provides a ten-day period of free use of the acquired temporary telephone. But at the same time, there is a limit of $ 4 - that’s how much you can spend on communication at the expense of Countrycode.org during this time.
You can create a virtual number in the following way:
- Select the state where you are going to call. If the number is needed only for receiving SMS, then you can specify any country.
- At the next stage, in “Get a virtual number in”, you must additionally indicate the required state and its region. Confirmation of action - button "Instant Free Trial".
- Then the registration itself: enter information about yourself, mail address. Note what goals you pursue when creating the number - commercial, personal.
- Remember to click on "I agree to the Therms & Conditions".
- The next step is to activate your account via the link that will come to your email inbox.
- Click on the green button if you need a temporary phone at a time.
- You can view the SMS you received in the following way: Manage Phone Numbers - Call Action - View message.
Sellaite
The service differs in that there is no need to go through the tedious registration procedure - you just click on a free number and it becomes yours. But we warn that this method is only good for instant code, confirmation. You don’t need to bind any account to it - a temporary phone on Sellaite will already be transferred to another user.
Receive SMS Online
And another useful service that provides virtual numbers absolutely free and without registration. Users appreciate it because it is easy to find a Russian or Ukrainian mobile phone number in an extensive database.
ReceiveFreeSMS
This site was liked by users due to the fact that from its database you can select the phone number of the country you need, including Russia. The user can only stop at one of them, click on it and inform the addressee. The received message will be displayed on the open page of the site. All numbers are online, so SMS come to them with guarantee and without delay.
A temporary phone number is a very useful service in modern reality, when registration on the lion's share of sites requires confirmation via mobile, and online stores send codes for purchases to phone numbers. This service will also help those who are afraid of Internet scammers who do not want to "shine" their personal data in front of the site administration, users who need to have a second and subsequent page on popular social networks.