Private Relay

Private Relay generates email aliases to use in place of personal email addresses.

Recipients will still receive emails, but Private Relay keeps their personal email address from being harvested, and then bought, sold, traded, or combined with other data to personally identify, track, and/or target them.

• Private Relay
  • Usage (for now)
  • Local Extension Development
    • Working with translations
      • Getting the latest translations
      • Running with the latest translations
        • Create a Firefox profile set to use the target language
        • Run web-ext with that profile
      • Add/update messages for translation
  • Build for other environments
    • Distributing
      • Add-on Submission Process
      • Continuous Pre-releases
      • Make the new version
      • Publish to AMO
      • Publish to Chrome
      • Publish to GitHub

Usage (for now)

1. Install the extension.

2. Go to relay.firefox.com and sign in.

3. In any <input> element, right-click and select "Make a relay address"

   • The extension will populate the options with your relay addresses.

Local Extension Development

1. Clone, change to the directory, install dependencies:

   git clone --recurse-submodules git@github.com:mozilla/fx-private-relay-add-on.git
   npm install
   

2. Run with npm:

   npm run web-ext-run
   

   By default, this will open and run the extension in Firefox. If you'd like to run this in Chrome, run the following:

   [!WARNING] This will run a script that will introduce breaking changes to manifest.json. Please do not commit any script-changed edits to your PR.

   npm run web-ext-run:chrome
   

   If you want to run the extension on Android, you'll need to install the Android SDK platform tools:

   npm run web-ext-run:android --device=DEVICE_ID
   

   Please refer to extensionworkshop.com to learn more about how to run an extension on Android.

3. Visit http://127.0.0.1:8000

Working with translations

Getting the latest translations

We use a git submodule for translated message files. The --recurse-submodules step of installation should bring the message files into your working directory already, but you may want also want to udpate the translations after install. The easiest way to do that is:

• git submodule update --init --remote

Running with the latest translations

To run the latest translated version of the add-on, you will need to

1. Create a Firefox profile set to use the target language
2. Either:
   • Run npm run web-ext-run with that profile
   • Install the latest pre-release in that profile

Create a Firefox profile set to use the target language

1. Make a new Firefox profile - e.g., "swedish"
2. In the profile, install the language pack for one of the add-on's supported languages
   • Note: language packs only work on Release & Beta channels of Firefox - not Nightly
3. In about:preferences, go to the "Language" section, and click the "Set Alternatives" button next to "Choose the languages used to display menus, messages, and notifications from Firefox."
4. Pick the language pack you installed.
5. Quit Firefox so the profile is saved.

Run web-ext with that profile

Use npm run web-ext-run to run the add-on, and pass the profile argument. E.g., npm run web-ext-run -- -p "swedish"

Add/update messages for translation

The privaterelay/locales directory is a git repository like any other, so to make changes to the messages:

1. Make whatever changes you need in src/_locales/en as you work.

2. cd src/_locales/en

3. git branch message-updates-yyyymmdd

4. git push -u origin message-updates-yyyymmdd

You can then open a pull request from the message-updates-yyyymmdd branch to the l10n repo main branch.

Build for other environments

These scripts will build the add-on to work with dev, stage, or prod servers.

• npm run build:dev: https://dev.fxprivaterelay.nonprod.cloudops.mozgcp.net/
• npm run build:stage: https://stage.fxprivaterelay.nonprod.cloudops.mozgcp.net/
• npm run build:prod: https://relay.firefox.com/

If you want to run the Chrome build of the add-on, use the following scripts:

[!NOTE]
It runs the same scripts as above, but also edits the menus permission listed in the manifest.json*

• npm run build:chrome-dev: https://dev.fxprivaterelay.nonprod.cloudops.mozgcp.net/
• npm run build:chrome-stage: https://stage.fxprivaterelay.nonprod.cloudops.mozgcp.net/
• npm run build:chrome-prod: https://relay.firefox.com/

Distributing

Add-on Submission Process

See internal documentation here. This document outlines how to submit and release the Firefox Relay add-on (extension) to the different add-on stores.

Process summary:

1. Cut Release: Create a new release on GitHub (new tag) with new version number.
2. Open ADDONOPS ticket: Create a new Jira ticket for the ADDONOPS team using their form, filling out all the particulars.
3. QA Greenlight: Link to QA comment or have QA comment directly on the ticket with greenlight.
4. Approval: If approval is given, you will be asked to submit to AMO.
5. Submit to AMO: Submit the add-on to AMO.
   WARNING: make sure to choose the right options.

Continuous Pre-releases

The sign-and-release-to-github action creates a signed add-on after every merge to main. These pre-releases are available on the GitHub Releases page.

To comply with WebExtension version requirements for AMO signing, the pre-release versions are Calendar Versioned as YYYY.MM.DD.minutes-since-midnight

The signed .xpi file is named private_relay-${{ YYYY.MM.DD.minutes }}.xpi and automatically attached to each release, under the release "Assets" section.

Make the new version

1. Bump the version number in package.json and manifest.json
2. Commit the version number bump
3. Create a git tag for the version: git tag <version>
4. Push the tag up to GitHub: git push --tags

Publish to AMO

1. After pushing the new version to GitHub, open the "continuous prerelease to GitHub" run for that tag: https://github.com/mozilla/fx-private-relay-add-on/actions/workflows/sign-and-release-to-github.yml
2. Under "Artifacts", download fx-private-relay-extension.zip
3. Upload the .zip to AMO

Note: Be sure the "Where to Host Version" is set to "On this site".

Publish to Chrome

1. After pushing the new version to GitHub, open the "continuous prerelease to GitHub" run for that tag: https://github.com/mozilla/fx-private-relay-add-on/actions/workflows/sign-and-release-to-github.yml
2. Under "Artifacts", download fx-private-relay-extension.zip
3. Upload the .zip to Chrome

Note: Be sure the publisher is set to Mozilla Corportation.

Publish to GitHub

Finally, we also publish the release to GitHub for those followers.

1. Download the signed .xpi from the addon versions page
2. Make the new release on GitHub
   • Use the version number for "Tag version" and "Release title"
   • Release notes: copy the output of git log --no-merges --pretty=format:"%h %s" <previous-version>..<new-version>
   • Attach binaries: select the signed .xpi file