Firefox Relay protects your email address from hackers and spammers
Firefox Relay is a smart, easy solution that can preserve the privacy of your email address, much like a post office box for your physical address. When a form requires your email address, but you’d rather not share it, Firefox Relay can help. Click the relay button to give an alias instead. Firefox Relay will forward emails from the alias to your real inbox, keeping your actual email address hidden.
Firefox Relay is currently in the experimental, closed beta phase, and it’s free for now. If you’re an early adopter who likes to test new products, sign up for an invitation to give it a try.
Why bother? Email addresses are a hot commodity, and with good reason. Most people have only one or two email addresses, yet they have dozens, if not hundreds, of online accounts connected to them. Your email address is a unique identifier — after all, you’re the only one with it. And that means a good deal of data is associated with it, making your email address a desirable target.
Get less spam and junk mail
Have you ever found yourself on a site where you need to give up your email address to get some information? Or perhaps you tried a service only to realize that it’s not for you, but now they have your email address and it’s nearly impossible to fully delete your contact information from their database. Firefox Relay generates an email alias to keep your real email off spam lists and away from sketchy companies you may not trust. If any alias starts to receive messages you don’t want, you can disable or delete it.
Keep a private identity
Let’s be real. A good deal of the time we spend online is boring stuff like reading the news, swiping through tweets and watching videos of squirrel-proof bird feeders. But there are also times when we should feel free to explore parts of life privately and without embarrassment or threat. If you have to provide an email address to do those innocuous things or maybe things you feel are more personal or intimate, Firefox Relay can help avoid putting your real email address out there. Using an alias email doesn’t mean you’re up to no good, it just means you want to keep something to yourself. It doesn’t mean that the email alias won’t be tracked, but your real email identity is protected.
Protection from data breaches and hackers
Already in 2020, Firefox Monitor reported on 30+ data breaches that exposed a shocking amount of personal data. Bad actors know people reuse the same passwords and email logins, so if they get their hands on this data, they may use it to try accessing other accounts.
Type of breached data
Number of exposures*
Email addresses 348,343,465 Passwords 270,147,637 Usernames 234,033,502 Language spoken 169,972,905 Individual names 130,883,655 Phone numbers 93,927,077 Gender identification 80,380,347 Physical addresses 75,890,564 IP addresses 46,330,559
*Each number indicates the time that a piece of data was exposed in a breach.
Some data may appear in multiple breaches.
If you used an email alias with Firefox Relay and it ends up in a data breach, you will be able to resolve the security risk to your email address quickly by disabling or deleting the alias. Your primary email address is protected from the breach.
Sign up for Firefox Relay
Ready to check it out for yourself? Sign up for the open beta of Firefox Relay to give it a try.
Originally published at The Firefox Frontier.
