Firefox Relay, Mozilla’s email alias service to protect your real email address, is soon getting support for protecting phone numbers as well. The service will also be integrated into Firefox and the launch pricing ends officially in September 2022.
Mozilla launched the then-called Firefox Private Relay in mid-2020 as a standalone service. Users could sign-up to create email aliases to protect their email addresses. The email forwarding service would forward emails to the user’s email address, thus protecting the email address from other parties.
Firefox Relay Premium launched in late 2021 with an introductory price of $0.99 per month. The main extra features that premium users received at the time were support for custom domain names and options to reply to forwarded emails. Premium users could also create unlimited email aliases, whereas free users were limited to five.
In March 2022, Mozilla published an update for Firefox Relay that raised the attachment size limit of free accounts to 10 Megabytes from the previous limit of 150 Kilobytes. The new version introduced an option to block promotional messages, and Mozilla launched an official browser extension for Chromium-based browsers.
Firefox Relay’s future
Mozilla has big plans for Firefox Relay. One of the upcoming features of the service is the ability to protect phone numbers. Like the service’s email alias feature, it allows users to replace a phone number with one provided by Firefox Relay.
Calls and SMS are forwarded automatically to the user’s phone so that the actual phone number is not revealed anymore.
Sören Hentzschel notes that the feature will launch on October 11, 2022 in the United States and Canada. Mozilla has yet to reveal the price for the add-on, as the functionality is not included in the premium subscription pricing.
Talking about price. The introductory price of Firefox Relay Premium ends on September 27, 2022, but it is not as bad as it sounds. While the price of a monthly subscription increases to $1.99 per month, the $0.99 per month remains the price for users who subscribe to the service for an entire year.
Mozilla plans to support Firefox Relay natively in Firefox. Firefox Relay users who sign-in to Firefox will have automatic access to their aliases and the creation of new aliases in Firefox once the feature lands.
Closing Words
Free and premium users will benefit from the integration in Firefox, provided that they use the browser as their main driver. Premium users in the United States and Canada will get access to the new phone number protection service, but it is an add-on and will require an extra payment.
Now You: do you use Firefox Relay or another email forwarding service?
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