Firefox 63 Introduces Enhanced Tracking Protection

Mozilla today released Firefox 63 for Windows, Mac, Linux, and iOS, offering a new Enhanced Tracking Protection feature, plus Search Shortcuts, Dark theme support, and more.

With today’s release, we’re making progress against ‘removing cross-site tracking’ with what we’re calling Enhanced Tracking Protection,” Mozilla’s Nick Nguyen explains. “To ensure we balance these new preferences with the experiences our users want and expect, we’re rolling things out off-by-default and starting with third-party cookies.”

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Enhanced Tracking Protection is designed to effectively block the most common form of cross-site tracking, Mozilla says, meaning cookies and storage access from third-party trackers. You can also disable this feature on a site-by-site basis if you see weird behavior on sites you trust.

Additionally, Firefox 63 includes Search Shortcuts, in the US only, which adds Amazon and Google to the New Tab page. For Windows 10 users, Firefox 63 now supports the Dark theme. And on iOS, Firefox 63 lets you access Siri Shortcuts, so you can do things like open a new tab with your voice.

Firefox 63 for Windows, Mac, Linux is available from the Firefox website. You can download Firefox for iOS from the Apple App Store.

 

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Conversation 16 comments

  • skane2600

    23 October, 2018 - 6:26 pm

    <p>I don't know that much about Firefox, but what I would like to see on a browser is the option to turn off all "Do you want to leave the site" messages or similar tricks. IMO, requesting to close a tab should be an absolute command that can't be overridden by JavaScript on the page. </p>

    • idontknow

      23 October, 2018 - 6:36 pm

      <blockquote><em><a href="#355958">In reply to skane2600:</a></em></blockquote><p>I think Edge has implemented this in a good way. If you get more than one message from the same website you have the option to block all subsequent messages. </p><p>The message you're referring to is actually helpful in most cases. F<span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">or example</span> if you have started to fill out a form and then hit backspace to delete some text, but accidentally have moved the focus away from the textbox then you might lose your work. Facebook has implemented this.</p>

      • skane2600

        23 October, 2018 - 6:46 pm

        <blockquote><em><a href="#355960">In reply to idontknow:</a></em></blockquote><p>If you're closing a tab, you're obviously not in the middle of writing something. And you don't want to block all multiple messages from a site unless they are triggered by attempting to close the tab. Nor do you want to be asked about multiple legit messages.</p><p><br></p><p>Facebook's interface is pretty much a mess. Try to go directly to a comment you've made on a post. All you can do is go to the post you commented on and scroll down hoping that you comment isn't buried under "view more comments". </p>

  • martinusv2

    Premium Member
    23 October, 2018 - 6:56 pm

    <p>It's getting better and better.</p>

  • SherlockHolmes

    Premium Member
    23 October, 2018 - 11:53 pm

    <p>I still dont get it why somebody chooses Chrome over Firefox. Name one single thing Chrome is better as Firefox? Paul? 😉 </p>

    • StevenLayton

      24 October, 2018 - 7:54 am

      <blockquote><a href="#356002"><em>In reply to SherlockHolmes:</em></a><em>Habit? If something works well for people they don't often go looking for something else to do the same job.</em></blockquote><p><br></p>

  • jmwoods301

    24 October, 2018 - 1:41 am

    <p>Since using uBlock Origin, I rely less on imbedded browser protections.</p><p><br></p><p><br></p>

    • spacein_vader

      Premium Member
      24 October, 2018 - 4:18 am

      <blockquote><em><a href="#356019">In reply to jmwoods301:</a></em></blockquote><p>Out of curiosity how many trackers is it showing that Thurrott.com tries to use?</p><p><br></p><p>I would check myself but Pi Hole works at the network level rather than an individual device or browser.</p>

      • Daekar

        24 October, 2018 - 8:44 am

        <blockquote><em><a href="#356030">In reply to spacein_vader:</a></em></blockquote><p>For this article, it shows 11 items blocked based on my settings. As far as I'm aware, there is no functionality on the page that is broken by blocking. Maybe it's different if you're not a subscriber.</p>

      • waethorn

        24 October, 2018 - 10:18 am

        <blockquote><em><a href="#356030">In reply to spacein_vader:</a></em></blockquote><p>I count 32 on this article alone. With as many as 20 being insecure.</p><p><br></p><p>WHY IS THERE CHINESE ANALYTICS IN USE HERE?!?</p>

  • epguy40

    24 October, 2018 - 11:55 am

    <p>By the way Paul, another feature of Firefox 63 is that starting with this version it will auto update to newer versions without user input as the "Never check for updates" option has been removed in Firefox 63.</p><p><br></p><p>To block Firefox browser updates in Firefox 63 and greater, read this Softpedia news article-</p><p>news.softpedia.com/news/how-to-block-updates-in-mozilla-firefox-63-523409.shtml</p>

    • ragingthunder

      24 October, 2018 - 12:27 pm

      <blockquote><em><a href="#356118">In reply to epguy40:</a></em></blockquote><p>Softpedia isn't reliable. Full of malware.</p>

      • waethorn

        25 October, 2018 - 2:44 pm

        <blockquote><em><a href="#356126">In reply to ragingthunder:</a></em></blockquote><p>You might be thinking of Softonic. Softpedia's downloads aren't great, but Softonic is all malware.</p>

    • marbo100

      24 October, 2018 - 5:22 pm

      <blockquote><em><a href="#356118">In reply to epguy40:</a></em></blockquote><p>If you are already blocking updates in Firefox, wouldn't you have already blocked FF63 from loading? Just stay on 62 forever.</p>

      • RobertJasiek

        24 October, 2018 - 8:57 pm

        <blockquote><em><a href="#356214">In reply to marbo100:</a></em></blockquote><p>Blocking automatic updates and deactivating / deinstalling any update service do not necessarily mean no updates. Instead, one can download and install updates manually and again do as above. E.g. for security reasons: an update service can be a security risk or not fit into one's security model.</p>

  • marbo100

    24 October, 2018 - 5:29 pm

    <p>The config setting media.autoplay.enabled in the config, when set to false, no longer stops web video from playing automatically in the new version. After some searching I found that the new way to stop autoplay videos from playing is to set the media.autoplay.default setting to 1. Thanks for not setting your videos here to autoplay in the first place.</p>

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