Brave's browser one-ups Chrome with its new support for email aliases

Brave has added a new email alias feature to its browser, giving users a way to shield their primary inbox from online trackers and potential data breaches. The tool is designed to compete with similar options in other browsers by offering an alternative to typing a real email address into website forms. To use it, a person must first create a Brave account and provide their actual email address. Once logged in, clicking on an email field on a site triggers a pop-up offering to generate an alias, though users can also right-click the field to access the option manually.

The alias appears as a unique address on the website’s form, and any messages sent to it are automatically forwarded to the user’s primary email account. Brave frames this as a privacy protection measure, noting that websites often treat email as a personal identifier for advertising purposes. The company points out that ad tech firms, including Meta, can match an email submitted to a retailer with the address they already have on file for that person, allowing them to track purchases or browsing activity.

Brave also highlights the security risk of sharing a real email across multiple sites. If a website suffers a data breach, hackers gain access to that address, which can then be leaked and sold to data brokers. The new feature aims to close that hole by keeping the primary address out of most website databases.

The company states that it does not read the contents of emails sent to an alias, only processing them for spam and virus filtering before forwarding. After forwarding, Brave deletes the emails from its servers. Account data is encrypted at rest, and any notes a user saves alongside an alias are stored locally on the device unless sync is enabled, in which case that data is encrypted end to end.

Because the feature is newly launched, Brave warns that some forwarded messages might initially land in spam folders. The company expects this to improve as it builds a reputation as a legitimate mail provider. For now, users get five free email aliases, with additional ones planned for Premium subscribers in the future. The rollout applies to the US market, where browser privacy tools have become a key differentiator for companies competing with Google’s Chrome. No pricing for Premium was disclosed in the announcement.

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