Firefox Send was a

free and open-source Free and open-source software (FOSS) is a term used to refer to groups of software consisting of both free software and open-source software where anyone is freely licensed to use, copy, study, and change the software in any way, and the source ...

file sharing File sharing is the practice of distributing or providing access to digital media, such as computer programs, multimedia (audio, images and video), documents or electronic books. Common methods of storage, transmission and dispersion include r ...

web service developed by

Mozilla Mozilla (stylized as moz://a) is a free software community founded in 1998 by members of Netscape. The Mozilla community uses, develops, spreads and supports Mozilla products, thereby promoting exclusively free software and open standards, wi ...

. It was operational from August 1, 2017 until July 7, 2020.

Functionality

Firefox Send allowed users to upload

computer file A computer file is a computer resource for recording data in a computer storage device, primarily identified by its file name. Just as words can be written to paper, so can data be written to a computer file. Files can be shared with and transfe ...

s, including large files up to 2.5

gigabyte The gigabyte () is a multiple of the unit byte for digital information. The prefix ''giga'' means 109 in the International System of Units (SI). Therefore, one gigabyte is one billion bytes. The unit symbol for the gigabyte is GB. This defini ...

s, to the Send website, generating links from which the file could be accessed and

downloaded In computer networks, download means to ''receive'' data from a remote system, typically a server such as a web server, an FTP server, an email server, or other similar system. This contrasts with uploading, where data is ''sent to'' a remote s ...

. Users could also set expiration dates or maximum number of downloads for the links. The service was end-to-end encrypted, meaning only the uploader and those who the links were shared with could view the file.

History

On August 1, 2017, Mozilla launched Firefox Send via its Test Pilot program. The developers wanted to experiment with end-to-end encrypted data syncing and this service allowed them to try out encrypting large files, gigabytes in size, as opposed to the megabytes usually synced by browsers. Firefox Send was launched to the public on March 12, 2019. On July 7, 2020, the service was suspended after the discovery that

cybercriminal A cybercrime is a crime that involves a computer or a computer network.Moore, R. (2005) "Cyber crime: Investigating High-Technology Computer Crime," Cleveland, Mississippi: Anderson Publishing. The computer may have been used in committing the ...

s abused it to spread

malware Malware (a portmanteau for ''malicious software'') is any software intentionally designed to cause disruption to a computer, server, client, or computer network, leak private information, gain unauthorized access to information or systems, depri ...

and mount spear phishing attacks. Developers attributed these problems to the absence of any form of authentication and the lack of abuse reporting mechanisms. Developers planned to resume service after implementing mandatory authentication via Firefox Account for file uploading and creating malware reporting mechanisms. On September 17, 2020, as a part of

's business and products refocusing plans, the service was shut down permanently, along with Firefox Notes. The shutdown followed employee lay-offs in August that likely included the staff who would have been responsible for implementing abuse prevention and malware reporting mechanisms. On July 28, 2023, Thunderbird has announced resurrecting Firefox Send as Thunderbird Send.

References

External links

Killed by Mozilla

Send
- A fork of Firefox Send Firefox Free and open-source software Mozilla Software using the Mozilla license Discontinued software {{Web-software-stub

Functionality

History

See also

References

External links