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Protect your privacy and your phone number with Firefox Relay

by mozillamaxx on 10/11/22, 4:05 PM with 131 comments

• by imagetic on 10/11/22, 4:55 PM

  I like what Mozilla has been doing with their services, but they have built a very confusing business model of many micro services that I just don't see a ton of people signing up for as independent subscriptions.

  Why not bundle them all as one membership? Pocket, Mozilla VPN, Relay, Monitor, and whatever services they can scrape up premium options and features for to give them value?

• by jaclaz on 10/11/22, 5:02 PM

  I don't understand the idea behind it.

  Now:

  1) You give your real number to someone.

  2) Somehow your real number goes into a list used by robo-callers.

  3) A robo-call arrives on your real number, disturbing your peace.

  After:

  0) You give Mozilla 3.99 or 4.99 US$/month

  1) You give your Mozilla number to someone.

  2) Somehow your Mozilla number goes into a list used by robo-callers.

  3) A robo-call arrives on your Mozilla number, that promptly relays it to your real number, disturbing your peace.

  You cannot change your Mozilla number, so it is basically an "alias" number, where is the advantage?

  Stopping paying so that the number becomes invalid?

  But then you won't be reachable anymore by the people you gave that number to.

• by madamelic on 10/11/22, 5:16 PM

  If y'all are interested in something like this, let me know. I wrote a service exactly like this [0] and it sort of flopped because the marketing plan was bad and I struggled to crack my (poorly chosen) target market of 'privacyfreaks'.

  If you want to re-co-found with me on marketing / sales, hit me up: maddie+hn[at]qnzl.co. I tried some pivots, sucked at marketing it, I occasionally get asked about where it went.

  ---

  If anyone wants to run their own instance using Twilio, I open-sourced the basic structure of my previous service [1] so it should be fairly plug-and-play to do this cheaper ($1 per number + small usage fee) and for more numbers.

  My caveat about this is some services will silently ignore you if you try to use a virtual number. It's more useful for IRL where you don't want to throw your real number around much.

  [0]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18311146

  [1]: https://github.com/qnzl/twilio-basic-server

• by jacooper on 10/11/22, 9:47 PM

  Call me when you remove Ganalytics from such "privacy focused service" (1)

  Will stick with Simplelogin.io, which is included for free with Proton Unlimited.

  1: https://github.com/mozilla/fx-private-relay/issues/1639

• by Terretta on 10/12/22, 10:32 AM

  Meanwhile, Hushed lets you get many numbers and costs less.

  https://hushed.com/

  "Since 2013, Hushed has offered consumers affordable private phone number solutions with fully equipped talk and text capabilities. With an expansive selection of phone numbers from over 300 area codes in the US, Canada, and UK, our goal is to provide a secure telecommunication experience for users around the world. Hushed offers mobile and local phone numbers from a variety of countries and area codes. We pride ourselves on the high-quality service we offer all our customers, and we believe that protecting your privacy is of the utmost importance."

  // not affiliated

• by LeoPanthera on 10/11/22, 5:49 PM

  Maybe this is a good place to ask: I'm a British expat living in the USA, and for a while now I've wanted a service which provides a British phone number, and forwards calls and texts to my US number, while also allowing me to send texts and make calls "from" the UK number if I want to.

  It looks like I might be able to do this with Twilio, but I'm not a developer, and quickly got frustrated trying to build what I wanted.

  Is there a service that will do this for me at a reasonable price?

• by srhngpr on 10/11/22, 8:53 PM

  I think TextNow offers a better solution and I've been using it to do this for quite some time and it doesn't require any kind of forwarding. I can send/receive calls and messages directly from within its app and recycle numbers at any time - all for free (ad supported). Calls are of great quality too and it even includes voicemail. If I really like a number and want to lock it (to also receive 2FA codes), it's a yearly $7 fee. Works with area codes in US and Canada.

  I think there are other options like Fongo and probably a dozen other similar services that already have been doing this for some time. Not really seeing the value proposition of going with the Mozilla option here. Am I missing something?

• by rsync on 10/11/22, 5:55 PM

  This is my 2FA Mule. There are others like it, but this one is mine:

  https://kozubik.com/items/2famule/

• by crackercrews on 10/11/22, 5:41 PM

  > Each month you will receive up to 50 minutes for incoming calls and 75 text messages. All phone number masking plans will include unlimited email masking. The cost is $3.99 a month for an annual plan or $4.99 a month for a monthly plan.

  So you pay $4-5 per month and you're still limited? I was expecting there would be some free amount and after that it's paid.

  Will this SMS work for account verification?

• by tjoff on 10/11/22, 8:10 PM

  > Next, you will be prompted to verify your true phone number where the calls and texts will be forwarded to via text message. After verification, we will generate your phone number mask.

  Doesn't feel necessary to me really. I've never ever been in the need for an incoming call, just for sms. And I'd much rather have them sent to an email rather than my actual phone too (and then I wouldn't need to share my phone number with this service either). That would be a real use-case for me. But paying a monthly subscription for that twice a year sms isn't that great either.

  I currently have a pre-paid sim and an old phone for this usecase. It kind of sucks and I don't have access to it when I'm not home (sure, there are ways to sync this but haven't felt a big enough need for it yet).

• by grammers on 10/11/22, 6:20 PM

  This looks nice. I'm currently using Tutanota and love it. Seems like it would be possible to connect this with Firefox Relay, digging into it a bit more!

• by sneak on 10/11/22, 10:12 PM

  Spam calls are not the reason it is bad to give your number out; it isn’t related to calls at all.

  Your number is your permanent cross-app, cross-company tracking identifier. It is a lookup key for your name, address, income bracket, email, spam history, etc.

  This is why so many apps require it during signup.

• by vmoore on 10/11/22, 5:33 PM

  > this feature is available in the U.S. and Canada

  Bummer. Before reading this, I was so excited, since robocalls and sketchy SMS messages with malware payloads have plagued my phone for years, and now it's not available to me (I'm in the EU).

• by ronnocoep on 10/11/22, 7:31 PM

  Craigslist used to have a free service similar to this called 'Craigs Number'. Worked well and was free. Come on Mozilla, you can do better.

• by anotherrandom on 10/12/22, 1:45 AM

  Just set up an email service and everything and start offering similiarities to Google's web ecosystem already. Mozilla doesn't need to worry about devices or a cloud division, or even a search engine (yet? Brave has one).

  The slower they are to realize they need to do all that to stay relevant, the faster Firefox's market share shrinks

• by janalsncm on 10/11/22, 7:13 PM

  It would be great if someone could package several virtual services into one app. Virtual cc number, virtual email address, virtual phone number all with one click. That way I can sign up for some in-store membership with working info, get the discount, and never worry about my info being compromised.

• by cmcconomy on 10/11/22, 5:18 PM

  This service seems interesting for people who are establishing net new phone numbers, but for those of us who have existing numbers they've been using, the barn door is already open. This wouldn't get us off existing lists.

• by jasec57322 on 10/12/22, 1:05 PM

  Mozilla has a massive trust problem.

  They could still so easily regain much of their lost trust by sincerely apologising for their cock-ups (dodgy studies/data-collection, addons-fiasco, etc) and their political shilling; and yet, they do not.

  The sewage they keep pumping out on their blog, and spaffing money on expensive rebrands, is turning-off the users who keep Mozilla alive.

  Given how much they're doing for Google's market-share with this blatant self-sabotage, you'd be forgiven for thinking Mozilla is being run by Google.

• by prng2021 on 10/12/22, 2:48 AM

  Is someone at Mozilla willing to share some technical details about how this is implemented under the covers? The main thing I’m curious about is:

  Can the ability to have multiple relay numbers tied to 1 real number be added relatively easily by scaling your technical architecture, or is there some non-marginal underlying cost to each additional relay number that would make such a feature too expensive to support at this price point?

• by tailspin2019 on 10/11/22, 4:21 PM

  This is cool. I've recently been thinking about getting a "burner" number for sharing outside my immediate circle.

  Same for email - the idea would be to have a phone/email for public consumption and then a separate address and number for my inner circle of family/friends.

• by rodolphoarruda on 10/11/22, 5:01 PM

  We need this service available in Brazil like... yesterday. Robocalls are reaching unbearable levels.

• by simonebrunozzi on 10/12/22, 7:35 AM

  > Since launching in 2020, Firefox Relay – a privacy-first product that hides your real email address to help protect your identity – has blocked more than 1.3 million unwanted emails

  Gmail might block the same 1.3M unwanted emails every... minute?

• by darkarmani on 10/11/22, 5:28 PM

  Isn't this Google Voice which was once Grand Central (12 years ago)?

  Forward your phone number to a different number through gvoice. For email, add a '+' symbol to your email address and filter them out if they get abusive.

• by RockRobotRock on 10/12/22, 3:51 AM

  How will this be resistant to scams where you "refer a friend" to get free Uber Eats or Doordash or whatever?

• by 4k1l on 10/12/22, 12:08 PM

  Would be nice if Mozilla do whole package, something similar to amazon prime, for a single price.

• by EVa5I7bHFq9mnYK on 10/12/22, 1:31 PM

  Obviously, those phone numbers will very soon be blacklisted and not accepted by businesses.

• by tblflpr on 10/12/22, 1:53 AM

  Right, because adding *more* anonymity to our tech is precisely what we need to enable more bad actors to do whatever they want without facing any repercussions.

  slow clap

  I am all for privacy, but many so-called privacy-centric tech “solutions” are simultaneously crime-enablers. Things need to be fixed at the legislative level, not by opening more pandora’s meta-crypto-app-boxes.

• by moxieta on 10/11/22, 5:52 PM

  is this usa and canada only?

  i can't see any option when i log on from the uk.

• by pyinstallwoes on 10/12/22, 3:04 AM

  Less useful if you can’t generate a mask per a signup form.

• by arealaccount on 10/11/22, 10:29 PM

  How is this different from google voice which is free?

• by petarb on 10/11/22, 10:17 PM

  I can’t wait for Apple to add this to iCloud

• by hguant on 10/11/22, 5:20 PM

  I'd be more for this if Mozilla didn't have a habit of sneaking in actively privacy hostile "updates" and enabling them by default.

• by faultable on 10/11/22, 5:49 PM

  only for certain regions, as always.