“Digital fingerprinting” is a way for advertisers and other, even less scrupulous people (if there is such a thing) to track you online. Going far beyond simple cookies, these systems can track specific, unique users across the web. Firefox browser maker Mozilla is fighting back, integrating more aggressive protections against fingerprinting in its latest update.
Mozilla has rolled out a new version of Enhanced Tracking Protection that’s, well, even more enhanced. According to the company’s Distilled blog, the new changes can reduce effective single-user tracking from over 60 percent of users down to below twenty percent.
This is achieved with a variety of techniques meant to befuddle the automated systems that use your hardware and software settings to identify specific users and devices. This includes blocking specific scripts, inserting random data into canvas elements, not allowing access to locally installed fonts, or even reporting an intentionally incorrect screen resolution or CPU core count.
As of Firefox version 145, these changes are only on by default in Private Browsing Mode. But according to Mozilla, the company is working to apply them to all users in standard browsing mode. Privacy advocates will no doubt be happy to hear this. It’s a win for Mozilla, which needed one. As PCGamer notes, the company recently came under fire earlier this year for amending Firefox’s terms of service to, allegedly, enable Mozilla to sell user data. It didn’t help that this happened at the same time as new “AI” features were introduced.
Mozilla claimed that it was a misunderstanding and that the amended terms were necessary to implement new features, but the promise not to sell data is still missing in action from the Firefox FAQ page.
