Mozilla Firefox now prevents websites and advertisers from following you

After more than a year of strengthening its privacy protections, Firefox now blocks website cookies, allowing advertisers and publishers to follow you on the Web.

Cookies are small text files that websites may store in your browser – proprietary cookies from the website operator or third-party cookies that may come from advertising and analytics agencies. Mozilla blocks these third-party cookies with a Firefox feature called improved tracking protection announced in 2018.

Privacy issues such as data breaches and the massive Cambridge Analytica scandal on Facebook have affected millions of people. Controlling browser cookies does not solve everything, but it can help solve part of the privacy problem by preventing companies from following you more easily from one website to another.

"People are becoming more and more vulnerable," Mozilla said in a blog post. "We believe that to truly protect people, we need to set a new standard that puts people's privacy first."

Moves mark an effort by browser makers to become more assertive, even if it means giving up coded instructions in websites. Years ago, advertising technology companies had been instrumental in removing a technology called "Do not Track" that could have offered consumers a way to explicitly indicate to websites that They did not want their web behavior to be monitored, but browser designers are now evolving on their own.

Browser lock becomes standard

Mozilla has started letting people block tracking in 2017, but it's not the first to enable the default feature. Apple's Safari has blocked third-party cookies longer and has recently added a feature called Intelligent Tracking Prevention that goes even further. The rival browser, Brave, also blocks third-party cookies. Even Google's dominant Chrome is starting to curb cookies.

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Newly installed versions of Firefox will block default trackers, Mozilla said. If you already have it installed, Firefox will automatically enable blocking in the next few months. You can disable this feature and opt for different levels of blocking. Blocking can sometimes cause problems with websites.

Blocking cookies may lead to another tracking strategy called fingerprint. Here, website-based tracking scripts evaluate the features and configuration of your browser, a collection of data that can uniquely identify you. To counteract this, the browser manufacturers reduce the factors that can be used for the fingerprint and block the identified fingerprint scripts.

"Privacy is the new browser war"

Some browser makers consider privacy as a way to distinguish themselves from Chrome.

"Confidentiality is the new browser war"John Wilander, an engineer from the Safari team who helped create Apple's intelligent tracking prevention technology, tweeted in 2017. He saw Firefox and potentially Microsoft Edge as allies. , he tweeted that Mozilla's decision to block intersite tracking in Firefox had been a "day to celebrate. "

Marcos Cáceres, an engineer at Mozilla, echoed this idea a few days ago in a tweet aimed at Google and Facebook. "There is a massive browser war around user privacy, ad tracking and targeted advertising (Google, FB, adtech vs. Apple, Mozilla, Brave and, hopefully, Microsoft)," Cáceres tweeted. "It's going to last a few years and it's going to get really ugly."

Facebook and Google are the greatest powers of Internet advertising. During the developer fairs in recent months, they have all touted privacy as a top priority.

"The future is private," said Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg in April.

"The protection of privacy can not be a luxury good offered only to people with the means to buy high-end products and services," said Google CEO Sundar Pichai in an editorial May. This position contrasts with Apple's critics that free services turn your personal data into a product sold to advertisers.

Facebook and Google have not responded to a request for comment.

First publication on June 4th, 6am.
Update of 8:22 am: adds a comment from the Apple developer on cross-tracking.