Firefox 42 gets Tracking Protection feature

November 4, 2015 | 12:01

Tags: #browser #firefox #nick-nguyen #privacy #private-browsing

Companies: #mozilla

Mozilla has added its new Tracking Protection functionality to the freshly-launched Firefox 42 web browser, but warns that privacy may come at the cost of broken websites.

Released back in August for testing, Mozilla's Tracking Protection mode is now a mainstream feature of Firefox 42. Designed to improve upon the existing Private Browsing mode, Tracking Protection automagically blocks adverts, analytics, and social sharing buttons which are known to track a user's behaviour across the web and between browsing sessions. The result: a claim from Mozilla's Nick Nguyen that 'no other browser’s Private Browsing mode protects you the way Firefox does — not Chrome, not Safari, not Microsoft Edge or Internet Explorer.'

The new mode also brings with it a Control Centre which allows per-site configuration, a feature required due to the reliance some sites have upon loading content from tracking networks. 'Since some Web pages may appear broken when elements that track behaviour are blocked,' Nguyen explained in the launch announcement, 'we’ve made it easy to turn off Tracking Protection in Private Browsing for a particular site using the Control Centre.'

The new Tracking Protection functionality is available across all supported platforms in the latest Firefox release, but activates only when the browser is in Private Browsing mode; those who wish to block adverts and other tracking systems in regular browsing will still need to investigate third-party plugin alternatives.
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