INSUBCONTINENT EXCLUSIVE:
Mozilla today announced that its Firefox browser will soon by default automatically block all attempts at cross-site tracking.
There are
three parts to this strategy
Starting with version 63, which is currently in testing in the browser nightly release channel, Firefox will block all slow-loading trackers
(with ads being the biggest offender here)
Those are trackers that take more than five seconds to load
Starting with Firefox 65, the browser will also strip all cookies and block all storage access from third-party trackers
In addition, Mozilla is also working on blocking cryptomining scripts and trackers that fingerprint users
As usual, the timeline could still change, depending on how these first tests work out.
In the physical world, users wouldn''t expect
hundreds of vendors to follow them from store to store, spying on the products they look at or purchase,& Mozilla Nick Nguyen writes today
&Users have the same expectations of privacy on the web, and yet in reality, they are tracked wherever they go
Most web browsers fail to help users get the level of privacy they expect and deserve.
If you want to give these new features a try today,
all you have to do is install the unstable Firefox Nightly release
There, in the privacy settings, you&ll find the new tracker blocking features under the &Content Blocking& header
Once you&ve turned that on, the browser will also walk you through how all of this works and highlight that some of the more aggressive
settings may break a few sites.
In addition, Firefox private mode uses the same kind of tracking protection already, as does Firefox for
iOS.
Safari users, too, will have likely yawned while reading this
Apple, after all, already announced similar privacy features for its browser last year
The approach here is different, with Apple betting on machine learning and Firefox using more traditional block lists, but the intent is the
same.
As Mozilla notes, the idea here is to give users choice
Sites can still ask for a user data but they&ll have to ask for consent before they get it
&Blocking pop-up ads in the originalFirefoxrelease was the right move in 2004, because it didn''t just make Firefox users happier, it gave
the advertising platforms of the time a reason to care about their users& experience
In 2018, we hope that our efforts to empower our users will have the same effect,& writes Nguyen.
