Firefox Send
Mozilla built an elegant encrypted file-transfer service, but criminals used its trusted links to distribute malware and the experiment was switched off for everyone.
Quick facts
- Existence state
- Officially Gone
- Peak stage
- general availability
- Research confidence
- high
- Last verified
What it was
A formally released Mozilla web service for sending encrypted, expiring files through shareable links.
Users uploaded files that were encrypted in the browser and automatically deleted after a chosen time or download count.
Existence timeline
Mozilla opens an encrypted transfer prototype.
Firefox Send graduates into a standalone service.
Larger transfers and accounts broaden access.
Mozilla responds to malware abuse of trusted links.
Mozilla decides not to relaunch the hosted product.
Open-source descendants preserve much of its functionality.
Why it ended
Mozilla took Send offline in July 2020 after abuse reports and permanently decommissioned it that September during organisational changes.
Last confirmed trace
Mozilla's launch and closure posts, open-source code and community forks preserve the design outside the original hosted service.
What it left behind
Send remains a model for privacy-focused sharing and a warning that encryption does not remove platform-level abuse pressures.
How we classified it
The archive unit reached normal public release or operation and is no longer obtainable in its original public form.
Verified normal public availability maps to 100 under Arrival Score V1.
Sources & verification
Last reviewed 2026-08-01. Sources are linked so readers can inspect the evidence directly.