Firefox is adding a number of privacy and security features, the firm’s owner Mozilla has announced.
Among the changes, Firefox will be made available to new users with enhanced tracking protection enabled by default. Those already using Firefox will see the feature rolled out automatically in the coming months.
But you don’t need to wait: if you want it now, you can turn it on by selecting "Block Third Party Trackers" in the privacy settings.
Mozilla says the new feature will stop the “thousands of companies known for tracking” from accessing users’ personal data. It doesn’t take a genius to work out who Mozilla is having a poke at.
Firefox will block over 2,500 tracking domains out of the gate and will be able to update and improve this list over time, says Dave Camp, SVP of Firefox. “And some domains host dozens of cookies so the magnitude of the impact is palpable for our users,” he says.
He points out that the solution focuses on third-party trackers: those that “drive the multi-billion dollar ad industry” and “feed the ad machines.” At the same time, Firefox will still allow the first-party cookies that help with remembering logins, or where you last left off on the site.
Why is Firefox making the changes?
Mozilla is enabling this functionality by default because most users don’t alter their browser settings, says Camp. In fact, he says expecting people to do so places an “undue burden” on them.
Camp points out that despite Firefox Quantum including a setting that would allow people to turn on tracking protection when it launched in 2017, only 3% of users chose to do so.
Firefox already introduced Tracking Protection in Private Browsing in 2015, which Mozilla points out is “long before many contemporary data privacy issues came to light.”
And talking of contemporary data privacy issues, Mozilla’s update includes an upgrade for Firefox’s Facebook container–which has apparently two million downloads to date. As part of the update, the container will also prevent sites that have embedded Facebook capabilities–such as the Share and Like buttons–from tracking users.
Mozilla says it will also be “much harder” to build shadow profiles of non-Facebook users. Users will know the blocking is in effect when they see the purple Facebook Container fence badge.
Known breaches
Another feature available on all browsers is a central dashboard called Firefox Monitor, originally announced in 2018 as a partnership with Troy Hunt’s Have I Been Pwned website. This is especially impressive because it allows users to search whether their details have been exposed in any known breaches, so they can change their passwords when needed.
At the same time, Mozilla is also helping users to manage their passwords more effectively by rolling out a desktop extension to Firefox Lockbox–which was previously only available on iOS and Android.
The hope is that making this feature easily available will encourage more users to take advantage of password managers. “We are still seeing the same issues relating to passwords,” says independent security researcher Sean Wright. “Using something like a password manager helps to encourage best practices, such as having unique passwords for each service, as well as passwords that are not easily guessable or prone to being brute forced.”
Declining privacy
So it’s clear why Firefox is making the changes—in an age of declining privacy, Mozilla wants to stand out from its major competitor Google.
But it has the right idea. Enabling privacy by default–or at least making security easy–is the right thing to do, especially for less cyber-savvy users who might not know how to stay safe online.
“This is a great move by Firefox,” says Wright. He points out that often, existing security features are not used simply because people are unaware of them.
“It helps gives ordinary users greater controls and choices when it comes to protecting their privacy. It’s also very encouraging to see that some of these features will be enabled by default.”
