Brave Browser Surpasses Chrome with Innovative Email Alias Feature

The Brave browser, known as a compelling alternative to Chrome, has rolled out an exciting feature: email aliases. This function, launched this week, allows Brave users to sign up on various websites and platforms without revealing their actual email addresses.

To take advantage of this feature, you’ll need to set up a Brave account and provide your real email address. Once you’re logged in, a pop-up will appear when you click on an email input field on any site, giving you the option to utilize an alias instead. (If the pop-up doesn’t show, simply right-click the field to access the option.) The created email alias will automatically fill the website’s form, and any emails sent to that alias will be redirected to your primary email account.

The company states that using an email alias significantly boosts your privacy, as websites often use your email as a unique identifier, allowing them to target advertisements towards you. Advertising technology firms like Meta can link the email you provide to their systems, enabling them to track your shopping or browsing habits.

Moreover, if a website where you’ve shared your email suffers a data breach, attackers might obtain your primary email address, which could be sold to data brokers.

Brave designed this feature to counter these privacy threats, reassuring users that they do not examine the content of emails sent to aliases—only scanning for spam and malware. After being forwarded, emails are deleted from Brave’s servers. All information connected with Brave accounts is stored in an encrypted format, and any notes associated with an alias remain on your device unless you enable syncing. If syncing is active, notes are protected with end-to-end encryption.

As this email alias feature is still in its early stages, users may find that some forwarded emails initially end up in their spam folders, though this should improve as Brave builds its reputation as an email provider.

Currently, Brave users can create up to five free email aliases, with intentions to offer additional aliases for Premium plan subscribers in the future.