Firefox introduces Enhanced Tracking Protection for Desktop Users

Great news for Mozilla Firefox users as the internet browser rolled out its latest tracking protection features that make web surfing a lot safer. The new Enhanced Tracking Protection will automatically shield your privacy and ensure that your sensitive and otherwise personal data remains safe from theft and misuse.

Almost every other site is embedded with trackers and harmful scripts, and blocking them usually results in breaking site functionality. However, with Firefox’s latest tracking features, you can block all such harmful spyware and malware without experiencing the slightest glitch in performance. Hence, you enjoy a seamless browsing experience while also being adequately protected from any breach of privacy.

Firefox’s Latest Privacy and Tracking Protection Features

A lot is going on in the original post by Firefox, but we’ll summarize what it all amounts to right here.

To begin, as a Firefox user, you’ll notice that your address bar now shows a shield-shaped icon.

• The icon is gray with a cross on it when Enhanced Tracking Protection is off.
• The icon is gray when there are no threats that are being blocked.
• And, the icon goes purple when Firefox has blocked specific privacy threats. You can click on the Purple Shield to see what scripts and trackers were blocked.

It is also important to note exactly what Firefox is blocking as part of its new Privacy and Tracking Protection. Firefox collaborates with a company called Disconnect to identify trackers and blocks all such activity.

• As a general rule of thumb, the browser blocks cryptominers, social media trackers, cross-site tracking cookies, and fingerprinters. These are all blocked on the default standard setting.
• As far as Tracking Content is concerned, the ‘Standard’ setting blocks such content only when you’re working in a private window.
• To keep Tracking content blocked in all windows and tabs, you need to change the setting from ‘Standard’ to Strict’ in your privacy preferences.

To know specific details about what is being blocked, you can click the Purple Shield on the address bar, which will open a new panel showing you all the details for that particular webpage. So, you’ll see three sections on the panel.

• There will be a section that says ‘None Detected‘. Here you’ll see the things that Firefox searched for (to block) but did not find on the present webpage.
• The second section is ‘Allowed‘. Here you’ll see scripts or content that Firefox did not block because doing so would have degraded the site’s functionality. These are scripts that are absolutely essential for the site’s performance.
• Finally, you have the ‘Blocked‘ section where you’ll see all the scripts, threats, and trackers that Firefox successfully blocked. You can click to see further details too.

Note: You can set your privacy preferences to ‘Strict’ in order to block those scripts that were allowed on ‘Standard’ settings. However, that’ll affect your browsing experience on such websites.

You can change your Enhanced Protection Settings by clicking the shield icon to the left of your address bar and click ‘Protection Settings’ on the subsequent panel. Doing so will take you to the ‘Privacy and Security Tab’.

Here, you can select your favored settings, whether ‘Standard’, ‘Strict’, or even ‘Custom‘.

However, suppose you experience difficulty in accessing websites or face troubles with a site’s performance due to these additional privacy protection measures. In that case, you can always disable Enhanced Trackers Protection for that particular site.

Just click the shield icon on the web page that is bothering you, and toggle the blue switch at the top of the panel to disable protection for that particular site while blocking all other websites that you open on your browser. The website will immediately reload with all the trackers unblocked and function smoothly.

By Gary Bernstein