Mozilla has made it easy for you to share large files securely and privately with whomever you want, eliminating the need to depend upon less secure free third-party services or file upload tools that burn a hole in your pocket.
Mozilla has finally launched its free, end-to-end encrypted file-transfer service, called Firefox send, to the general public, allowing users to safely distribute large file like video, audio or photo files that can be too big to fit into an email attachment.
Firefox Send was initially rolled out by Mozilla to test users way back in August 2017 as part of the company’s now-defunct “Test Pilot” experimental program. Firefox Send files up to 1GB in size, but if you sign up for a free Firefox account, you can upload files as large as 2.5GB in size.
The service uses a browser-based encryption technology that encrypts your files before uploading them to the Mozilla server, which can only be decrypted by the receivers. Unlike popular file storage and sharing services like Dropbox, Google Drive, Microsoft Onedrive and Box, Firefox Send is not available as desktop software or internally integrated with other products, i.e. Firefox, from its parent company.
It’s just an online website where you can quickly upload a file – protect it with a password(optional) and set an expiration period – use any means to share the link it generates with whomever the sender wants. The receivers can then simply download the file just by visiting the shared URL regardless of whether they have a Firefox account or not. You are not restricted to download files from the website as long as the shared URL is recognized.
Here are the key features of Firefox Send:
. End-to-End Encryption – Firefox send uses 128-bit AES-GCM encryption via the Web Crypto API to encrypt files in the web browser before uploading them to the server.
. Set Time Limit – While uploading the file, you can choose a time range between 5 minutes and week after which your file link expires, making it unable to download at the receiver’s end.
. Limit Number of Downloads – You can also set a number of file downloads (between 1 and 100 downloads) after which the download link automatically becomes invalid.
. Set a Password – For an extra layer of security, you can also choose to assign a password that would be required before a receiver can download a file.
“We know there are several cloud sharing services out there, but as a continuation of our mission to bring you more private and safer choices, you can trust that your information is safe with Send,” Nick Nguyen, Mozilla’s Vice President of Firefox Product, said in a blog post.
“As with all Firefox apps and services, Send is Private By Design, meaning all of your files are protected, and we stand by our mission to handle your privately and securely.”
Unlike other popular file storage services like Dropbox and Google drive, Firefox Send does require payment for users, which means you can not get more than what is available. It comes for free, all you have to do is have an account on the website and it is very efficient.
Firefox Send has launched on the web at send.firefox.com, which you can bookmark to avoid manually entering the address in your web browser every time you want to send files using the service. The service works well with any browser of your choice.
Besides its online portal, Mozilla is also launching a Send Android app in beta later this week, which also enable users to share large files with their friends, colleagues, or whomever you wish to share with as long as they are using their mobile devices.
If you also want to be a part of it, you can simply go to the GitHub page of the new Firefox Send service. And enjoy the efficiency.
Source: TheVerge