Brave, the privacy-focused browser, has introduced a new email alias feature that allows users to sign up for online services without revealing their personal email addresses. The feature, announced this week, is currently being tested.
To use it, users must create a Brave account with their real email address. When clicking an email field on a website, a pop-up offers the option to use an alias. If the pop-up does not appear, users can right-click the field to access the option. Emails sent to the alias are forwarded to the user's primary inbox.
Brave says the feature helps protect privacy because websites often use email addresses as identifiers for advertising and tracking. It also reduces the risk of primary email addresses being exposed in data breaches.
The company states it does not read the contents of forwarded emails, only processing them for spam and virus filtering, and deletes them after forwarding. Data in Brave accounts is encrypted at rest, and notes saved alongside aliases are stored locally unless syncing is enabled, in which case they are encrypted end-to-end.
As the feature is new, Brave cautions that some forwarded mail may initially go to spam folders. Users currently receive five free email aliases, with more planned for Premium plan users.