Using the service is just about as simple as it could be. You go to the Firefox Send page at:

https://send.firefox.com/

Click the button to select the files you want to upload.

You will then be able to decide how many times the file can be downloaded. The choices will be between 1 and 100 downloads. You can also decide how long the unique URL that allows someone to download the file(s) will last. There are 4 choices going from 5 minutes to 7 days. For added protection you can also apply your own password.

Once you have decided on how many times your file(s) can be downloaded, how long the link will last and applied a password if you require it, you are ready to upload them to the Firefox Send service. Click the button and the file(s) will be uploaded.

Now for the clever part.

When your file(s) are uploaded and securely stored on the Firefox Send servers you will be given a unique link like the example you see below:

https://send.firefox.com/download/de372df04d498487/#b27Uj0ILIS9WASWDZ-0PMA

All you need to do is to make a copy of the link as it is the link that you need to give to one or more people that you want to be able to download the file(s).

The final step is to give the link to the person or people that need to download the file(s). You could do this by email, text message, phone call or any other method that you want to use. Please do this in a secure way or there is no point in using a highly secure tool to share the files.

The person downloading the file just has to open a browser and put that link into the address bar. Often this is as simple as clicking on the link you have given them.

They can use any browser so they don’t have to be using Firefox and even if the download is over 1 GB in size they will not need to have a Firefox account. So you can send large files to anyone with no requirement for them to sign up for anything. Simply brilliant.

Once the file(s) have reached their time limit or their download limit they will no longer be accessible and will automatically be deleted from the Firefox Send servers. Nothing gets stored for longer than it has to. It is also completely secure as the file(s) are encrypted using the same system that you use for things like on-line banking and shopping. If you add your own password then it is even more secure but remember to give the password to anyone who is allowed to download the files or they won’t be able to download anything.

Something that can make this really secure is to set the download limit to just one download as the link becomes useless as soon as the file has been downloaded the one time. The file will also have been deleted so nobody could access it unless you send another copy with a new link.

There is a short video on YouTube that will show you just how easy it is to use and you can find it here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eRHpEn2eHJA

Clearly Mozilla hope that if you use and trust this service then you will use their Firefox browser as well. I’m a big fan of the Firefox browser and use it on all my computers because of its strong privacy so I'm happy to recommend it to you.

If you want to send files larger than 1.0 GB in total you will need to sign up for a Firefox account but this is worth doing anyway as it gives you some other features like being able to backup all your browser settings and even synchronise them across devices. This is an important feature for me as I use more than one computer and I always have all my bookmarks no matter what machine I am using.

Firefox Send is often a much better way to send files to someone rather than attaching them to emails as this way they don’t fill up peoples email storage and it is also a lot more secure. I’m using it more than I thought I would and I will be surprised if you don’t find it useful.

I found another video on YouTube that has a good review of Firefox Send and it is well worth watching. You can find it here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FggllDkReAE

Mozilla deserve to be congratulated for providing this excellent service and I hope it gets the use it deserves.