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 spammers and hackers out of your inbox

Get Firefox Relay

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.

Types of breached dataNumber of exposures*
Email addresses348,343,465
Passwords270,147,637
Usernames234,033,502
Language spoken169,972,905
Individual names130,883,655
Phone numbers93,927,077
Gender identification80,380,347
Physical addresses75,890,564
IP addresses46,330,559
*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.

This post is also available in: Deutsch (German) Français (French)


Share on Twitter