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On Tuesday, Firefox released a number of updates to its browser with the intention of putting “people’s privacy first”. The new features were detailed by Dave Camp, Senior Vice President of Firefox in a blog post. Firefox will roll out its Enhanced Tracking Protection, to all new users on by default. Additionally, they have upgraded Facebook Container extension, a Firefox desktop extension for Lockwise, and Firefox Monitor’s new dashboard to manage multiple email addresses.

Enhanced Tracking Protection blocks third party cookies by default

Firefox’s Enhanced Tracking Protection offers protection controls to users to block third party cookies at their own level of comfort with three settings – Standard, Strict, and Custom. Per the new update, for all new users who install and download Firefox for the first time, Enhanced Tracking Protection will automatically be set on by default as part of the ‘Standard’ setting in the browser.

  • The standard settings block known trackers and their cookies.
  • Strict will block known trackers in all Firefox windows. This includes third party trackers and tracking cookies
  • The custom setting of enhanced tracking protection allows you to select which trackers and cookies you want to block.

This feature will be present as a shield icon in the address bar next to the URL address. Users can also see which companies are blocked by clicking on the shield icon. For existing users, Enhanced Tracking Protection by default will be rolled out in the coming months. Manually, users can turn this feature on by clicking on the menu icon marked by three horizontal lines at the top right of the browser, then under Content Blocking.

Firefox Monitor- see if you’ve been part of an online data breach

Firefox Monitor has a new feature in the form of a breach dashboard that presents a quick summary of updates for all registered email accounts. Firefox Monitor was launched in September, last year, as a free service that notifies people if they’ve been part of a data breach.

The new breach dashboard helps users track and manage multiple email addresses, including both personal and professional email accounts. Users can easily identify which emails are being monitored, how many known data breaches may have exposed their information, and specifically, if any passwords have been leaked across those breaches.

Safe password management with Firefox Lockwise

Firefox have rolled out a new desktop extension that offers users safe password management features, the Firefox Lockwise. It will provide an additional touchpoint to store, edit and access passwords. Firefox Lockwise is already available for iOS, Android and iPad.

The new Firefox Lockwise desktop extension includes:

  • A new dashboard interface to manage saved list of passwords. For frequently visiting sites, users can quickly reference and edit what is being stored. For sites with fewer or no visits, users can easily delete a saved password.
  • The mobile app and desktop extension can help users quickly retrieve your password to access a site account.

Facebook Container now blocks tracking from other sites

Firefox have updated their Facebook Container extension to prevent Facebook from tracking users on other sites that have embedded Facebook capabilities such as the Share and Like buttons on their site. Facebook Container is an add-on/web extension that helps users take control and isolate their web activity from Facebook.

This blocking reduces Facebook’s propensity to build shadow profiles of non-Facebook users. Users would know the blocking is in effect when they see Facebook Container purple fence badge.

It is interesting that Mozilla released a slew of updates following Apple’s privacy focused features announced at WWDC 2019. It almost feels like they are acting as a counter balance to Google and Facebook, who have been under scrutiny for their data misinformation and privacy scandals. Google Chrome has also banned ad blockers for all users by deprecating the blocking capabilities of the webRequest API in Manifest V3. Chrome’s capability to block unwanted content will be restricted to only paid, enterprise users of Chrome.

Learn more about these privacy features on Mozilla Blog.

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Sugandha Lahoti
Content Marketing Editor at Packt Hub. I blog about new and upcoming tech trends ranging from Data science, Web development, Programming, Cloud & Networking, IoT, Security and Game development.