Firefox is launching tools to protect against tracking, fingerprinting, and cryptocurrency mining
Firefox is about to offer even more privacy-focused protection for its users.
Mozilla is partnering with Disconnect to power built-in protection against tracking, fingerprinting, and cryptocurrency mining in its flagship Mozilla Firefox web browser. Building on Mozilla's existing relationship with Disconnect in Firefox's existing tracking protection, these new features include protection against additional threats. This includes some malicious sites' behind-the-scenes use of scripts that drain the usage of your computer's CPU and other resources to mine for cryptocurrency like Bitcoin and Ethereum to line their pockets with additional revenue. It also includes protection against fingerprinting, which allows sites and services to track your activity across the Internet without using cookies by signaling out key aspects of the system you use to browse the web, such as the resolution of your screen, what operating system you use, your system's language, your location data, and more.
If you want to test out these new defensive tools in Firefox, you can enable them in version 67 of the beta release channel and 68 of the nightly release channel. Keep in mind that these builds aren't ready to be deployed to everyone, so expect a few bugs and hiccups here and there, especially in the nightly builds. When these builds are rolled out into the stable release channel, this additional enhanced protection will be enabled by default for all users.
Further coverage: Mozilla Blog Engadget TechCrunch The Next Web The Verge VentureBeat
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Firefox is a cross-platform web browser developed by the Mozilla Foundation. Firefox is a popular product, used in over 50 languages and available for Windows, macOS, Linux, Android and iOS.