Mozilla is now shielding all Firefox users by default from cross-site tracking while browsing the Web.
Beginning Thursday, Mozilla has enabled its Total Cookie Protection set of privacy enhancements for all Firefox users anywhere in the world.
Total Cookie Protection requires all websites to have their cookies in separate “jars,” thus preventing attempts to track users across the web and establishing browsing profiles.
Initially launched with Firefox 86 in February 2021, this privacy feature used to only work for users who opt for private browsing or when they manually enabled ETP Strict Mode in the web browser’s settings.
“Total Cookie Protection offers strong protections against tracking without affecting your browsing experience. It is Firefox’s strongest privacy protection to date, confining cookies to the site where they were created, thus preventing tracking companies from using these cookies to track your browsing from site to site,” said Mozilla in an announcement.
By maintaining a separate cookie jar for each website, Firefox will instantly block any attempt to use cookies to track users as they browse through the Internet.
This announcement strengthens Mozilla’s ongoing battle against ad tech companies’ efforts to track users’ browsing habits, harking back to 2018 when the company first launched the Enhanced Tracking Protection feature.
With this new feature, Mozilla now protects more than 211 million monthly active users and 3.26 per cent of the global browser market share from cross-site tracking attempts.