- Mozilla Firefox makes it difficult for websites to track “digital footprints”.
- Digital information, such as hardware specifications, is collected through websites.
- This information can then track the user’s activity, even when browsing privately.
When you use a web browser, it is common for websites to ask you for permission to use tracking cookies to collect data about your browsing habits, usually with the option to refuse.
But “fingerprints” are much harder to block than cookies, and websites can track your activity using your device’s hardware specifications, time zone and other information you provide to improve website performance and functionality.
When this information is combined into a profile, it can track your browsing habits even in private browsing mode, but Mozilla Firefox is now introducing fingerprint protection measures that would reduce the number of uniquely identifiable users by around 70%.
register fingerprints
The new safeguards have been introduced as part of Firefox’s “Enhanced Tracking Protection” service. Firefox145.
Protection is currently only available in Strict Private Browsing and Enhanced Tracking Protection (ETP) browser modes. However, tests in these environments will soon extend protection to normal navigation.
Many websites use invasive scripts that collect information from your browser and device that can be used for tracking purposes. The scripts are often executed even if you refuse cookies.
These scripts collect data such as browser version, operating system, screen resolution and color settings, system language, fonts, time zone, GPU processing behavior, CPU cores, touch screen capabilities, and device memory.
Enhanced Tracking Protection already offers a number of anti-fingerprint measures. “Since 2021, Firefox has gradually evolved fingerprint protection to cover the most common fingerprint detection techniques,” Mozilla explains. “This includes things like how your graphics card draws images, what fonts your computer has, and even minor differences in how it performs calculations.”
To counter other fingerprinting techniques, Mozilla introduced new mechanisms such as adding random noise to background images when reading the website, enforcing the use of default operating system fonts (except for language characters), and hiding touch support, screen resolution, and the number of CPU cores.
These new safeguards can reduce the number of users with unique fingerprints to just 20%, while more than 60% of users could be fingerprinted without any protection. Unfortunately, it is unlikely that a browser can reduce this number to 0%, as many websites rely on fingerprint information for important website functions and features.
IN BeepTeam