March 17, 2023
Mozilla has announced a new feature called Firefox Relay for its Firefox browser, and it aims to protect users from being spammed and tracked online.
The feature was released in beta as an extension in August 2020 and is now integrated into the browser. When users sign up for new accounts on websites, Firefox Relay masks their email addresses, preventing third parties from accessing their real email accounts.
Users will no longer need to access the management dashboard to generate email aliases thanks to the new integration. When a user creates an account on a webpage, Firefox Relay will prompt them to use an existing mask or create a new one. Firefox Relay’s aliases forward messages to users’ actual email addresses, allowing them to remain anonymous while still accessing websites and services online.
Firefox Relay generates unique aliases for each site, allowing users to easily delete and create new ones if they begin receiving spam messages without having to change their actual email account address. Furthermore, if users’ email addresses are compromised in a data breach, the threat actors only have their alias and not their real email address, protecting their privacy and anonymity.
Mozilla claims that Firefox Relay has prevented over two million spam and unwanted emails from reaching users’ inboxes. Unlike other vendors’ similar features, Firefox Relay removes trackers from emails before forwarding them to users’ real email accounts.
Users can access this feature within Firefox by registering for Firefox Relay, which has free and paid tiers. The feature’s seamless integration with Firefox will be gradually rolled out to users and will apply to some websites. However, by the end of the year, this will be expanded to include all users and more sites.
The sources for this piece include an article in TechRadar.
