Latest Firefox Brings Privacy Protections Front and Center Letting You Track the Trackers

2 months ago 1 second ago

Our push this year has been building privacy-centric features in our products that are on by default. With this move, we’re taking the guesswork out of how to give yourself more privacy online thanks to always-on features like blocking third-party tracking cookies and cryptominers also known as Enhanced Tracking Protection. Since July 2 we’ve blocked more than 450 billion tracking requests that attempt to follow you around the web.

450 billion tracker have been blocked with Enhanced Tracking Protection

Much of this work has been behind the scenes — practically invisible to you — making it so that whenever you use Firefox, the privacy protections are working for you in the background.

But now with growing threats to your privacy, it’s clear that you need more visibility into how you’re being tracked online so you can better combat it. That’s why today we’re introducing a new feature that offers you a free report outlining the number of third-party and social media trackers blocked automatically by the Firefox browser with Enhanced Tracking Protection.

In some ways a browser is like a car, where the engine drives you to the places you want to go and a dashboard tells you the basics like how fast you’re going or whether you need gas. Nowadays, most cars go beyond the basics, and dashboards tell you much more than ever, like when you need to brake or when a car is in your blind spot, essentially taking extra steps to protect you. Similar to a car’s dashboard, we created an easy-to-view report within Firefox that shows you the extra steps it takes to protect you when you’re online. So you can enjoy your time without worrying who’s tracking you, potentially using your data or browsing history without your knowledge.

Here’s how Firefox’s Privacy Protections report works for you:



The Firefox Privacy Protections report includes:

• • See how many times Enhanced Tracking Protection blocks an attempt to tag you with cookies –  One of the many unseen ways that Firefox keeps you safe is to block third-party tracking cookies. It’s part of our Enhanced Tracking Protection that we launched by default in September. It prevents third-party trackers from building a profile of you based on your online activity. Now, you’ll see the number of cross-site and social media trackers, fingerprinters and cryptominers we blocked on your behalf.
  • Keep up to date on data breaches with Firefox Monitor –  Data breaches are not uncommon, so it’s more important than ever to stay on top of your email accounts and passwords. Now, you can view at a glance a summary of the number of unsafe passwords that may have been used in a breach, so that you can take action to update and change those passwords.
  • Manage your passwords and synced devices with Firefox Lockwise– Now, you can get a brief look at the number of passwords you have safely stored with Firefox Lockwise. We’ve also added a button where you can click to view your logins and update. You’ll also have the ability to quickly view and manage how many devices you are syncing and sharing your passwords with.

“The industry uses dark patterns to push people to “consent” to an unimaginable amount of data collection. These interfaces are designed to push you to allow tracking your behavior as you browse the web,” said Selena Deckelmann, Senior Director of Firefox Engineering at Mozilla. “Firefox’s Data Privacy Principles are concise and clear. We respect your privacy, time, and attention. You deserve better. For Firefox, this is business as usual. And we extend this philosophy to how we protect you from others online.”

Stay up-to-date on Your Personalized Privacy Protections

There are a couple ways to access your personalized Firefox’s privacy protections. First, when you visit a site and see a shield icon in the address bar, Firefox is blocking 10 billion — that’s billion with a B —  trackers every day, stopping thousands of companies from viewing your online activity. Now, when you click on the shield icon, then click on Show Report, you’ll see a complete overview.

Click on the shield icon, then click on Show Report, to see a complete overview

 

The number of cross-site and social media trackers, fingerprinters and cryptominers

 

A complete overview of your Privacy Protections

Another way to access the report is to visit here. The Privacy Protections section of your report are based on your recent week’s online activities.

Keep your passwords safe with Lockwise’s new password generator and improved management

As a further demonstration of our commitment to your privacy and security, we’ve built visible consumer-facing products like Monitor and Lockwise, available to you when you sign up for a Firefox account. Equipped with this information, you can take full advantage of the products and services that’s also part of this latest release.

Last year, Firefox Lockwise (previously Lockbox) launched as a Test Pilot experiment to safely store and take your passwords everywhere. Since then, we’ve incorporated feedback from users like launching it on Android, in addition to desktop and iOS. Today, we’ve added two of the most popular requested features for Lockwise that are now available in Firefox: password generator with improved management plus integrated updates on breached accounts with Firefox Monitor.

Take a look at the improved Lockwise dashboard:



The newest Firefox release includes enabling users to generate and manage passwords with Firefox Lockwise, stay informed about data breaches with Firefox Monitor, which is now even better integrated with the Firefox browser and its features.

• Generate new, secure passwords – With multiple accounts like email, banks, retailers or delivery services, it can be tough to come up with creative and secure passwords rather than the typical 123456 or your favorite sports team, which are not secure at all. Now, when you create an account you’ll be auto-prompted to let Lockwise generate a safe password, which you can save directly in the Firefox browser. For current accounts, you can right click in the password field to access securely generated passwords through the fill option. All securely generated passwords are auto-saved to your Firefox Lockwise account.
• Improved dashboard to manage your passwords – To access the new Lockwise dashboard, click on the main menu button located on the far right of your toolbar. It looks like ☰ with three parallel lines. From there click on “Logins and Passwords”, you’ll see the new and improved Firefox Lockwise dashboard open in a new tab, which allows you to search, sort, create, update, delete and manage your passwords to all your accounts. Plus, you’ll see a notification from Firefox Monitor if the account may have been involved in a data breach.
• Take your passwords with you everywhere – Use saved passwords in the Firefox browser on any device by downloading Firefox Lockwise for Android and iOS. With a Firefox Account, you can sync all your logins between Firefox browsers and the Firefox Lockwise apps to auto-fill and safely access your passwords across devices whenever you are on the go.

Preventing additional data leaks in today’s Firefox release

We’re always looking for ways to protect your privacy, and as you know there are multiple ways that companies can access your data. Initially launched in Private Browsing mode in January 2018, we’re now stripping path information from the HTTP referrer sent to third-party trackers to prevent additional data leaks in today’s Firefox release. The HTTP referrer is data sent in an HTTP connection, and can be leveraged to track you from site to site. Additionally, companies can collect and sell this data to third parties and use it to build user profiles.

To see what else is new or what we’ve changed in today’s release, you can check out our release notes.

Check out and download the latest version of Firefox available here.

 

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