Mozilla has today released Firefox 70.0 for all platforms. The previous version of the browser arrived with Enhanced Tracking Protection (ETP) enabled by default on all platforms. The latest version of this privacy-focused browser ups the game by also bringing Social tracking protection - which blocks cross-site tracking cookies from sites like Facebook and Twitter - under the Standard settings. [The browser offers Standard, Strict, and Custom privacy settings.]
The company said that since July 2 it has blocked over 450 billion tracking requests that attempted to follow Firefox users. Mozilla added that all of this happened behind the scenes but the growing threat to privacy warrants more visibility to these efforts.
The browser maker has today announced a new report that outlines the number of third-party and social media trackers blocked automatically by the Firefox browser with Enhanced Tracking Protection.
This report will show you how many times Enhanced Tracking Protection blocks an attempt to tag you with cookies; 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, and 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," Selena Deckelmann, Senior Director of Firefox Engineering at Mozilla, said. "These interfaces are designed to push you to allow tracking your behavior as you browse the web."
"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.”
The latest version also brings some security improvements to Firefox Lockwise - the company's identity and password management tool - and performance improvements on desktop.
Here is the complete changelog of Firefox 70
- More privacy protections from Enhanced Tracking Protection:
- Social tracking protection, which blocks cross-site tracking cookies from sites like Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn, is now a standard feature of Enhanced Tracking Protection.
- The Privacy Protections report shows an overview, with details, of the trackers Firefox has blocked. It provides consolidated reports from Monitor and Lockwise.
- More security protections from Firefox Lockwise, our digital identity and password management tool:
- Lockwise for desktop lets you create, update, and delete your logins and passwords to sync across all your devices, including the Lockwise mobile apps and Firefox mobile browsers .
- Integrated breach alerts from Firefox Monitor, to alert you when saved logins and passwords are compromised in online data breaches.
- Complex password generation, to help you create and save strong passwords for new online accounts.
- Improvements to core engine components, for better browsing on more sites
- A faster Javascript Baseline Interpreter to handle the modern web’s
large codebases and improve page load performance by as much as 8
percent.- WebRender rolled out to more Firefox for Windows users, now available by default on Windows desktops with integrated Intel graphics cards and resolution of 1920x1200 or less) for improved graphics rendering.
- Compositor improvements in Firefox for macOS that reduce power
consumption, speed up page load by as much as 22 percent, and reduce
resource use for video by up to 37 percent.- More browser features to help you get the most out of Firefox products and services
- A stand-alone Firefox account menu for easy access to Firefox services like Monitor and Send.
- A message panel accessed from the gift icon in the toolbar that offers a quick overview of new releases and key features.
- When a website uses your geolocation, an indicator is shown in the
address bar.CHANGED
- Built-in Firefox pages now follow the system dark mode preference
- Aliased theme properties have been removed, which may affect some themes
- Passwords can now be imported from Chrome on macOS in addition to existing support for Windows
- Readability is now greatly improved on under- or overlined texts, including links. The lines will now be interrupted instead of crossing over a glyph.
Today's release also fixes two critical security vulnerabilities along with several bugs rated moderate and high in severity. You can now download Firefox 70 for Windows, macOS, Linux, Android, and iOS.
- Smart Spies: how easy it is to abuse Alexa and Google Home to spy on users
The post Firefox 70 Is Out Today with the Ability to “Track the Trackers” by Rafia Shaikh appeared first on Wccftech.