Firefox aims to stop the practice of ‘fingerprinting” which enables some sites to continually track people as they surf the Internet. This can occur event when data privacy settings have been enacted and cookies have been deleted. The new Firefox feature, as CNET reports, also aims to block cryptocurrency mining scripts which seek to hijack a computer to mine any locally stored digital currency.
Online fingerprinting
Browser fingerprinting refers to an accurate method of identifying unique browsers and tracking a user’s online activity, using data identifiers. This is used as an alternative to cookies, allowing programmers to track use of devices through a combination of a set of information elements. Such device fingerprinting is used to identify Internet connected devices and applications and to track their use.
With the new add-ons, Mozilla (the developers of Firefox) has teamed up with Disconnect, the software company that already provides no-tracking software and an ad tracker blocklist for Firefox. Last year, The Verge recounts, Firefox 63 introduced Enhanced Tracking Protection, a feature that blocks third-party trackers
Focusing on both anti-fingerprinting and to block cryptocurrency extortion, Mozilla has stated: “To combat these threats, we are pleased to announce new protections against fingerprinters and cryptominers… In the coming months, we will start testing these protections with small groups of users and will continue to work with Disconnect to improve and expand the set of domains blocked by Firefox. We plan to enable these protections by default for all Firefox users in a future release.”
The new Firefox features are currently available in the test phase, and they can be accessed in the browser’s nightly (Nightly 68) and beta builds (Beta 67) for users to trial.
