Online trackers can be good as they provide the information for creating better future experiences. But for privacy concerned people, these things are bad.
Online trackers can gather information regarding people's online habit, allowing those who deploys them to profile these people n order to understand their interests, often for ad targeting purposes.
To prevent these software from gathering as much information from users, Mozilla has rolled out an enhanced and simplified controls for blocking trackers on Firefox.
Here, users can choose one of the three available options: 'standard’, ‘strict’ or ‘custom’.
While 'bad' trackers indeed can be bad, it's not actually advised to block all trackers as some are necessary for website operations. These 'good' trackers can have a lot of functions, so it's not advised to remove them entirely.
In an example, Firefox 'strict' level of tracker blocking, according to Mozilla, is "for people who want a bit more protection and don’t mind if some sites break."
The 'standard' is friendlier, as it is summed as a "set it and forget it". Selecting this mode will make Firefox to block known trackers, only when the user is using Private Browsing mode.
The third option which is the 'custom' mode, allows users to configure according to their needs.
Mozilla said that it is “for those who want complete control to pick and choose what trackers and cookies they want to block”. This mode allows users choose whether or not to block certain trackers in all windows, or only in Private Browsing windows; and also to select different block lists or cookies.
This custom option also lets users choose from blocking third-party trackers; cookies from unvisited websites; all third-party cookies that "may" cause websites to break, or all cookies, which according to Mozilla, will cause websites to break.
To access this tool, Firefox users can head to the Privacy & Security settings which has the updated Content Blocking option. They can also click on the 'i' icon on the address bar, to then click on the small gear icon displayed next to Content Blocking.
Firefox's redesigned tracker blocking interface follows Mozilla's previous announcement, which said that it would be enhancing privacy by introducing default settings to block trackers, as well as "offering a clear set of controls to give our users more choice over what information they share with sites," to prevent "harms of unchecked data collection."
The attempt highlights how Mozilla wants to take part in securing users' privacy, especially after a string of data misuse and security scandals become a trend in recent times.
Since there are also concerns about creepy ads from tech companies that somehow follow everywhere users go on the web, the tracker blocker from Mozilla is taking advantage of these privacy trends.
"We initially announced in October that we would roll out Enhanced Tracking Protection off-by-default. This was just one of the many steps we took to help prepare users when we turn this on by default this year," said Mozilla.
"We continue to experiment and share our journey to ensure we balance these new preferences with the experiences our users want and expect. Before we roll this feature out by default, we plan to run a few more experiments and users can expect to hear more from us about it."
Among other improvements, Firefox also includes a better pop-up blocker “to prevent multiple pop-up windows from being opened by websites at the same time"; improved performance and web compatibility; a better experience for multilingual websites, AV1 video compression support for Windows users, and an updated task manager to help users track slow tabs or extensions and close/uninstall them if needed.