A burner phone is a spare phone with long battery life that doesn’t need an expensive cell phone plan-what’s not to like? They are often found in emergency survival kits since they can be charged and turned off until they are required. This makes burner phones ideal for use in an emergency. Many such devices will last for days on a single charge, and sometimes even months if you use the battery sparingly. Since they are relatively lightweight devices, they have excellent battery life, too. Most lack cameras or access to a modern browser, and are instead limited to phone calls and text messaging. Since burner phones are feature phones, they are severely limited in their abilities. Maybe you’re trying to avoid giving your main phone number to marketers who will likely send you follow-up messages-like when you’re viewing a real estate listing or looking for insurance quotes. Maybe you would like to use a secure messaging service like Signal or Telegram without disclosing your primary phone number. Maybe you’re phoning in an anonymous tip to an employer. There are all sorts of reasons that someone might want to remain anonymous. If you can manage to procure a handset or SIM card that isn’t linked to your real-world identity, you can use the number without the risk of being identified. You might use a burner phone or a SIM to protect your identity. With that in mind, some of the applications of a burner phone rely solely on having a second dedicated device you can use. Some smartphones can even accommodate more than one SIM at a time for this purpose. Instead of purchasing an entirely new device, a burner SIM can be used in a smartphone to switch between numbers for a variety of reasons. Since the rise of iPhones and Android devices, burners are more commonly referred to as “feature phones” or “dumb phones,” since the smartphones of today didn’t exist in the early 2000s. While the term “burner phone” is still common, SIM cards could also be used in such a manner. Once a number was suspected of being compromised, the device was discarded or “burned” so that the trail would go cold. The term was popularized in the hit 2002 HBO series The Wire, where “burners” were used to avoid detection by authorities. These phones have traditionally been purchased with cash to avoid any kind of paper trail that would tie the phone number to an individual.

A burner phone is a cheap, prepaid mobile phone that the owner generally doesn’t intend to use long term.

How to make a free burner phone number