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Can someone explain aliases to me please?

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  • Last reply by strshne420

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I got a message saying my email address had been breached on Linkdin. It offered me to use Firefox aliases, but I'm utterly confused. How does it work?

I got a message saying my email address had been breached on Linkdin. It offered me to use Firefox aliases, but I'm utterly confused. How does it work?

Chosen solution

Firefox Relay forwards all messages received at that alias to your real email address.

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Email aliases are addresses you can use to forward mail to your actual account. You can use aliases on sites where it's not essential to prove your identity with your real email address. This is suggested as an idea for the future, and doesn't address what has happened in the past.

The recent LinkedIn issue was mass "scraping" of public profiles. So this is an example where if someone had scraped an alias address, you could just stop using it and adopt a new one. But for LinkedIn in particular, it would be strange not to use your "business" address, so I'm not sure there's anything you need to do in this case.

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I do not understand how to use it. I get what it's for now.

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If you sign up for an alias, then when a website asks you for your email address, you give them the alias instead.

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So, do I use just 1 alias or do I generate a new 1 each time I'm asked for my email address? and, how does that work/ If I enter the alias and they want to contact me, how do they do that?

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You can use as many or as few aliases as you like. When someone sends an email to the alias address, Firefox Relay forwards it to your actual email account. cor-el linked to the article with more information a little earlier in this thread: Activate Firefox Relay - hide your email address with a mask

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Note that Firefox Relay allows to define upto five aliases that you can use to hide your real email address on various websites.

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i still am not getting how I get my email if I use the alias. Sorry...I am technologically inept. Please bear with me.

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Chosen Solution

Firefox Relay forwards all messages received at that alias to your real email address.

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Thanks for explaining how it works I really appreciate it. Thanks to all of you!