These extensions were designed to facilitate Cloaked Email, a breakthrough privacy tool we created in the fall of 2012.

We’ve shifted attention away from individual privacy tools and to more comprehensive solutions to privacy problems using Gliph Messaging and Gliph Marketplace.

While we continue to support Cloaked Email creation and administration in all of our clients, we believe it in our community’s best interest to stay focused in these areas.

What happened

Our team first debuted Cloaked Email on August 14th, 2012. We created the product in part due to our own frustration with how Craigslist handled email privacy. We performed a survey and found that we weren’t the only ones who felt this way.

Previously, when you created a Craigslist post, their system would protect your email address in the listing itself. However, if you replied to someone who had emailed you about the old stereo you were selling, it would reveal your email address.

Gliph Cloaked Email solved this problem by protecting your email address across both ways of the exchange. It also allowed you to do it directly from your own personal inbox.

Beginning in November, we noticed Craigslist began testing an “anonymized relay” aka “email-relay” that offered similar functionality to Cloaked Email. After some testing, we were able to prove that their new service did not interfere with Cloaked Email.

However, at some point this spring, without notice, Craigslist began blocking email sent using Gliph Cloaked Email addresses as it passed back through their relay service. Then the system moved from optional to required for all ad listings where email addresses are automatically included.

Today, what happens is when someone responds to your ad listed by a user using Gliph Cloaked Email, it works the first time, going through both the Craigslist Email Relay and through Cloaked Email to your real inbox, but when the Gliph user replies, Craigslist does not pass the email on to the other person.

We contacted Craigslist and asked if they had blocked Gliph Cloaked Email, so we could get validation of the change. Craigslist either never received our inquiry or has chosen not to reply to us.

For the record, we love Craigslist and think it is very important peer to peer marketplace. We’re humbled that Craigslist seemed to think email privacy Gliph demonstrated was important enough to implement their own system.

We hope whatever changes Craigslist made were not done to single out Cloaked Email users, but rather to protect and improve the experience for all Craigslist users. But it sure would have been nice if they had just communicated that.

So now what?

First, don’t let this get you down. You can still use Cloaked Email with Craigslist, you just have to do it a bit differently than before:

When you list an ad on Craigslist, you have the option of choosing “use craigslist mail relay” or “no replies to this email, please.” You must choose “no replies to this email, please.” Here’s a screenshot of what that looks like:

Then in the listing, you must give your cloaked email address directly in the ad. For example, you should say: “please contact me by email at banana43@cloak.gli.ph.”

Potential buyers will still be able to contact you, and your replies will still be delivered as expected and you’ll get basically the same experience as before.

We are also recommending that Craigslist users change their account email address back to their normal email address. That way if you forget to enter your cloaked email in the ad listing, you will still be able to communicate with potential buyers.

We realize that not all Cloaked Email users will like this new requirement for using Cloaked Email on Craigslist and we’re sorry for the inconvenience.

The good news is that Cloaked Email still works great on services like Facebook, Twitter, Amazon, bulletin boards, and coupon sites across the internet. We know many people depend on Cloaked Email and are proud that it continues to protect privacy on the internet.

Bitcoin is still fairly new, if you aren’t familiar with it at all, you may want to watch this. If you haven’t heard about Gliph’s recent addition of Bitcoin, you can read about it here, and watch a video of the iPhone app here.

Here are the new Bitcoin-related updates in v1.48:

• The Bitcoin option in the menu now shows to all new users. We had a bug that was causing this to not be displayed without restarting the app.
• You can now view the current exchange rate in the Send Bitcoin popover. It is based on the 24-hour MtGox weighted average.
• Bitcoin payments now have a small Bitcoin symbol next to them. You can also tap on a Bitcoin payment in a conversation view and see it listed in the wallet view.
• You can now detach a Coinbase wallet from Gliph. If you want to remove your Coinbase Bitcoin wallet from Gliph, use the trash can button in title bar of wallet view. Please note: if you intend to completely remove the connection we recommend you also visit Coinbase and remove Gliph’s access to the Wallet.
• Wallet view now shows Gliphs of users from prior transactions. Previously Gliph showed Bitcoin transaction IDs.

We made a few other non-Bitcoin enhancements as well:

• We’ve made some changes to that speed up app navigation.
• We fixed a bug in the Cloaked Email Address view where blocking senders would sometimes cause an error.
• We made some code refinements that you won’t notice but will help us develop features faster. :)

This iPhone update joins two recent incremental Android updates.

We appreciate your feedback! Please continue to share your experience by sending a note to the Support Gliph.

One-click Block
You can now click a link at the bottom of any email received over one of your Cloaked Email addresses to stop receiving email from a particular address. This super-opt-out feature allows you to avoid many hoops that companies make you go through to get off their email list.

If you accidentally block a sender, or change your mind and want to unblock someone, you can still do so. Under Cloaked Email, choose the Cloak you want to edit the block list for and then tap the Edit button to Unblock a particular address.

Copy Yourself on Outgoing Cloaked Email
You can now send yourself a copy of an outgoing email sent over Cloaked Email. The Chrome and Firefox plugins have been updated with a “Send me a copy” item that will copy you on outgoing emails sent via Cloaked Email. Some people describe this as BCCing themselves.

This feature is also available in the Gliph Mobile Web client (https://gli.ph), and will be a part of an upcoming release for iPhone. Here are some handy links to the Firefox and Chrome pages:

• Gliph for Chrome
• Gliph for Firefox

Lean Emails (Paid Feature)
We’ve added a new upgrade for Cloaked Email called Lean Emails. This paid option removes all promotional content from emails sent or received over Cloaked Email. We’ve added this in direct response to multiple requests for a paid option to remove Gliph company messaging from Cloaked Email.

This feature is currently for sale in the Gliph Web Store and will be a part of an upcoming release for iPhone in-app purchase.

Today we’re unveiling the first versions of Gliph plugins for Google Chrome and Mozilla Firefox web browsers.

These handy new extensions help you create and send new emails from your Cloaked Email addresses, and make adding privacy to Craigslist and other websites easy. If you aren’t familiar with Cloaked Email, take a moment to review this blog entry.

How to Install the Gliph Chrome Extension

1. Visit the Gliph Chrome Extension page in the Chrome Web Store.
2. Click the Add To Chrome button.
3. You should now see the Gliph icon in the top right corner in the Chrome browser.

How to Install Gliph Firefox Add-on

1. Visit the the Gliph Firefox Add-on page on the Firefox Add-ons website.
2. Click the Add To Firefox button.
3. You should now see the Gliph icon in the bottom right corner of the Firefox browser window.

Send a Cloaked Email
Click this item to open a new window to email anyone from your Cloaked Email address. There is a drop-down menu item that allows you to choose the Cloaked Email address you want the new email to be sent from. Notice that the label you gave the cloak appears in the parenthesis after the address. You can update your labels by visting the Cloaked Email administration page and editing your cloaks.

Send Attachments via Account Upgrade

You can upgrade Cloaked Email on your account to allow you to send file attachments directly from the browser plugin.  For more information on upgrading your Gliph account, read this blog post.  Here is a screenshot of what that looks like:

Reply to a Craigslist Ad

The Gliph Chrome Extension also adds items to your right-click context menu. When

you are viewing a Craigslist ad, you can now right-click an email address and choose a specific Cloaked Email address to reply from.  When you do, the extension creates a new email window with the Subject pulled from the ad and a link to the ad automatically added to the listing.