Mozilla has announced a new privacy-oriented service called Private Relay that will generate unique email IDs to help users sign-in to various sites and services without divulging their real email address. Available as an add-on for Firefox, the new service will help users avoid tracking by advertisers and spam operators by relaying all incoming emails to the user’s real email ID so as to ensure that they do not miss out on any important message. The service entered testing last month and is currently in an ‘experimental, invite-only alpha’ phase, but according to ZDNet, a public beta is scheduled for later this year.
On its official add-on repository, Mozilla said that its new tool will be a 1-click solution for users wanting to end online tracking by various apps and services. According to the organization, “Private Relay adds UI to generate unique, random, anonymous email addresses that forward to your real address. You can use your relay addresses to sign up for apps, sites, or newsletters. When you’re done with that service, you can disable or destroy the email address so you’ll never receive any more emails from it. And, if the service has an incident, their data won’t be linked back to you“.
Private Relay seems to work similarly to ‘Sign-in with Apple’, which also offers users a similar option of hiding their email ID while signing-in to various online apps and services. However, unlike the latter, which is a complete sign-up and sign-in tool, Mozilla’s new offering is not a sign-in service, but only offers burner email IDs that can be used while signing up for sites or newsletters.
Download Private Relay from Mozilla: Free
