Firefox Relay

Mozilla, the company behind the Firefox browser, rolled out a new bundled subscription for two of its privacy-oriented products. Now, customers can get Mozilla VPN and Firefox relay for one price.

If you’re not familiar with either product, here’s a quick summary. Mozilla VPN is, well, a VPN service based on WireGuard and Mullvad. The plan covers up to five devices, offers over 500 servers in over 30 countries, and there are no bandwidth restrictions. Importantly, Mozilla promises it doesn’t log network activity and that Mozilla VPN offers device-level encryption. It came to Canada in July 2020 and later expanded to support Mac and Linux.

Mozilla VPN on its own typically costs $4.99 USD per month, billed annually at $59.88 (about $80 CAD) for 12 months.

Firefox Relay, on the other hand, is a web app that lets users create email “masks,” which are alternate emails, so they don’t have to give out their actual email. Relay recently expanded to include phone number masking for those who pay for Relay Premium (which is also included in the new bundle).

Free Firefox Relay users got up to five email masks. There are two tiers of Relay Premium; the first gives access to unlimited email masks and additional features like the ability to block promotional emails or respond to forwarded emails. It costs $1.99 USD ($2.66 CAD) per month or $0.99 USD ($1.32) per month with yearly billing. It jumps up to $3.99 USD ($5.34 CAD) per month with yearly billing to get the phone number masking.

However, with Mozilla’s new bundle, you can get both Mozilla VPN and Relay Premium with phone number masking for $6.99 USD ($9.35 CAD) per month or $83.88 USD ($112.26 CAD) per year. You can sign up for the bundle from either the Mozilla VPN website or the Firefox Relay website.

Header image credit: Mozilla

Source: Mozilla

Mozilla, the company behind the Firefox browser, rolled out a new update to another privacy-focused service called ‘Firefox Relay’ that enables users to hide their real phone number with a burner number provided by Relay.

Firefox Relay, if you haven’t heard of it, is a web app (and browser extension) that lets you generate email “masks” — virtual email addresses that you can hand out to websites instead of your real email. The email masks then forward emails to your real email address, allowing you to maintain a degree of separation between your real email and the services you give an email to (of course, you can also block emails coming from a mask, giving you a great option for anything you suspect will bombard you with spam).

Now, Mozilla has expanded that idea to phone numbers. Through Firefox Relay, people can create a phone number mask to give out online so they can keep their real phone numbers private.

Given that many people use their phone numbers for two-factor authentication (2FA), keeping a private phone number is a good idea. SIM swap fraud, which involves fraudsters stealing your phone number to gain access to 2FA codes, is all too common — minimizing exposure is a great way to help combat it. Of course, the phone number mask is also helpful if you need to give your number to a company you suspect will use it to send you spam (or sell it to someone who will).

How Firefox Relay phone numbers work

Currently, Firefox Relay phone numbers are only available in the U.S. and Canada. To get one, head to ‘relay.firefox.com‘ and then sign up for a free account, or sign in if you already have one. It’s worth noting that you can use Relay for free, but with a limit of five email masks, among other restrictions.

Click the purple ‘Upgrade’ button to view the three Relay tiers. To get a phone number, you’ll need to get the ‘Email & phone protection’ tier, which costs $4.99/mo (or $3.99/mo if you go with annual billing). That gives you access to one phone number mask and generates a number for you to use.

Image credit: Mozilla

Each month, Relay subscribers get up to 50 minutes of incoming calls and 75 text messages for the phone number mask. Mozilla said in a blog post that it’s exploring ways to expand the feature with outbound calls and texts in the future and bring it to other regions.

Moreover, you will need to verify your actual phone number with Firefox Relay so that it can forward the calls and texts to you. Once set up, you’ll receive calls and texts from the phone number mask on your phone, with no additional apps required. Plus, you can use Relay to manage who can call and text your number to cut down on unwanted spam.

You can learn more about Firefox Relay phone numbers from this blog post, or check out Relay for yourself here.

Source: Mozilla