Gmail Registration Fixer
 

What this Modification does:
If you require unique email addresses, people can still use a Gmail account to register multiple times by placing .'s in the address or by using the @googlemail.com extension. vBulletin will see these as unique emails; however, they will go to the same email. This modification fixes that problem.

Installation:
Just import the product in your Admin CP.

Notes:
If you wish to customize the error message, the phrase is called "gmail_same_email" in the Phrase Manager. You must have the "Require Unique Email Addresses" option enabled for this modification to work.

Updates:
Version 1.01
- Modification now fixes the user+something@gmail.com problem.

Can you expand on how users can place .'s in the address to register multiple times. I'd like to check to see if any users have been doing that on my site. thanks.

Sure, I can do that. Say a user signs up with usera@gmail.com. They could sign up again with like user.a@gmail.com or usera@googlemail.com. vBulletin will think these are unique addresses because they are different, but they are delivered to the same usera@gmail.com address. The .'s could be placed anywhere before the "@" (and I am fairly certain you can also use them in conjunction with the @googlemail.com extension).

Smart fix.

Thanks.

I'm glad you find it useful. Also, I forgot to put in the first post that the "Require Unique Email Addresses" option must be enabled for the modification to work.

gmail also allows you to use + in the email. Not sure if VB picks up on that or not.

So user@gmail.com and user+vb@gmail.com go to the same address.

It is a nice feature to see who is passing out your email but it may cause the same problem.

The + problem is now detected and stopped.

thank you :)

does it work also in vb 3.7.6?

I wasn't even aware such an issue existed.

This is most definately installed, thanks.

I should work on any version of vBulletin that has the product/plugin system, so yes.

What about e-mail addresses that are registered with a period to begin with? Are they blocked?

For example, my e-mail address is firstname.lastname@gmail.com. That's how I registered it when I signed up for the Gmail account. Therefore, that is not the same as FirstnameLastname@gmail.com. Would I be allowed to register with my e-mail address or not?

As long as any variation of the email address hasn't been registered, you will be able to register with that email. Even if it did entirely block emails with .'s in them (which it does not), you would still be able to register with FirstnameLastname@gmail.com and receive the email at your Firstname.Lastname@gmail.com email address.

But I think (maybe I am wrong) what Nick is asking is those 2 emails are not the same? Right? I registered my email the same way first.last@gmail.com so you are telling me firstlast@gmail.com is the same email address? So I can register with firstlast@gmail.com and that email will go to first.last@gmail.com? For some reason that doesn't seem right to me...

Or am I being daft? lol

Those emails are the same address on Gmail. :p

Whoa! What is the point of the "." then? LOL!!

I guess I could have just tried logging in but I never knew this! Wow...

Thanks!!

Didn't know this either, lol. Thank you very much!

Doesn't seem to work properly to me. While it indeed blocks attempts to register using variations of the gmail account address, it also seems to randomly block gmail accounts which are certainly not registered in the forum as if they are already there. It doesn't happen with all of them and I can't see a pattern because it has happened with simple and complex addresses.

Any ideas? Thanks.

Any update on Jacobomoya's problem?
I've got this modification tagged and want to install it, but I won't install when it will give problems with authentic gmail accounts ofcourse.

same for me, couple users reported this to me so i had to deactivate it just to get sure, that everything is fine

I installed and tested this addon but it is only blocking the users trying to use googlemail.com/gmail.com variant. It is not blocking registrations when users are using "." in the email address.

Quite unfortunate.

Unlike back when this Mod was made, today it's really useless to even bother requiring a valid email. Because the autospam programs have defeated pretty much all human verification on the most popular email services. And they get the verification code anyway, directly from your site on pageload after they "click" the submission.. (XRumer)

If you want to stop autospam I would recommend one of the registration time check mods. They're very effective.

I don't even use the email verification anymore, haven't for a little over a year. It's simply obsolete, now.

This mod has two author's mistakes...

First: Search
Replace it with

Second: authors mistake - is metodological.... If we have email 'test.1test@gmail.com' in our user database, and we register new email 'test.1.test@gmail.com' - we have successfull registration...

Why?
Because author search (in user database) email 'test1test@gmail.com' (without dots)