Firefox Send: free encrypted file sharing service

Yesterday Mozilla brought one of its experimental projects, Firefox Send, to the final version: a simple and secure service for sharing encrypted files. Files up to 1 GB are supported (up to 2.5 GB after logging in to the Firefox Account).

The service looks simple, but the engine running under it that provides true end-to-end encryption, that is, you don’t transfer files openly anywhere — they are encrypted specifically on your PC, and are decrypted on the recipient’s computer (JS in the browser). How it works can be seen on the example of Firefox Sync , a similar architecture is implemented here.

Firefox Send.
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In addition to directly encrypting, files can be protected with a password, as well as two restrictions:

• Number of downloads
  
  • one
  • 2
  • 3
  • four
  • five
  • 20
  • 50
  • 100
• Link time
  
  • 5 minutes
  • 1 hour
  • 1 day
  • 7 days

By default, there is a limit of 1 download and 1 day. That is, if the recipient did not follow the link for a day, then it is deactivated. And if it has, it will still be deactivated.

Developers write that the service is ideal for sharing presentations or other work files with colleagues. They just get the link, click on it and download the file, do not need access to the Firefox Account or special cryptography knowledge (as if you are encrypting the file with PGP and sending it by mail).

Within a few days, the Firefox Send Android application will also be released (when you read this article, it could already be exited).

By the way, while the service was in beta, they wrote an open-source CLI interface for it to easily encrypt files from the command line. It allows you to automate this procedure and seamlessly integrate into your work tools.



The program also supports a bunch of useful functions like archiving directories, file history and different hosts for sending (that is, you can use your own server or self hosted, not the Mozilla server).

It is worth noting that at the moment there are already several cloud solutions for sharing encrypted files, including from Microsoft . As for the latter, its solutions are supported by all members of the Microsoft Information Security Association (Microsoft Intelligent Security Association), where the GlobalSign certification center entered in February of this year to make mobile authentication, making digital certificates easily accessible for mobile users.