Firefox 70 Arrives With Social Tracking Blocked By Default

An anonymous reader writes: Mozilla today launched Firefox 70 for Windows, Mac, Linux, Android, and iOS. Firefox 70 includes social tracking protection, a Privacy Protections report, new Lockwise features, and performance improvements on Windows and macOS. Firefox 70 for desktop is available for download now on Firefox.com, and all existing users should be able to upgrade to it automatically. The Android version is trickling out slowly on Google Play and the iOS version is on Apple's App Store. According to Mozilla, Firefox has about 250 million active users, making it a major platform for web developers to consider. With Firefox 70, Mozilla now also includes social tracking protection under the Standard setting. It blocks cross-site tracking cookies from sites like Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn.

Firefox on Android is the one

[tuppe666]

It is my reason for choosing the Android platform. It is amazing.

Re:

[gosand]

I switched to Firefox Focus on my phone, I used to use Dolphin. So far I like it, but will admit I don't do a ton of browsing on my phone.

Re:Firefox on Android is the one

[fbobraga]

The ability to use desktop add-ons in the phone (I use https://noscript.net/ [noscript.net] in my phone, to bypass some paywalls...), and to easily configure it (in the same way that on the desktop) is a game changer to me :)

Re:

[twocows]

Kiwi Browser also allows this apparently, also has a built-in adblocker. It's a Chrome knock-off, though.

Re: Firefox on Android is the one

[fbobraga]

One thing I can't do is configure a SOCKS 5 PROXY (I use it to control remotely some software, by HTTP - in conjunction with https://play.google.com/store/... [google.com] )

Re: Firefox on Android is the one

[fbobraga]

... with other browser I've tried (cliqued in "submit" by mistake)

Re:

[Anonymous Coward]

yeah you can, you have to manually add/activate it in about:config, i made it work with tor without using the torvpn mode, of course wfm
network.proxy.socks 127.0.0.1
network.proxy.socks_port 9050
network.proxy.socks_remote_dns true
network.proxy.socks_version 5

Re:

[serviscope_minor]

OMFG noscript.

I browse with noscript all the time on my desktop. Every one in a while I need to use a browser without it installed. Hells bells the web is bloody terrible without it. bling flash HELLO I'M HERE PAY ATTENTION TO ME. I have it on my phone too, and do almost all of my browsing with it.

Re:

[fbobraga]

Every one in a while I need to use a browser without it installed

it's my case too: I use (stock, on phone) Google Chrome in this cases

Re:

[ls671]

I moved to uMatrix because NoScript wasn't available for Firefox Quantum when it first came out. Nowadays, I like uMatrix more and I am not looking back at NoScript at all.

Re:

[Agripa]

OMFG noscript.

I browse with noscript all the time on my desktop. Every one in a while I need to use a browser without it installed. Hells bells the web is bloody terrible without it. bling flash HELLO I'M HERE PAY ATTENTION TO ME. I have it on my phone too, and do almost all of my browsing with it.

It is slowly getting worse even with Noscript because sites are now taking advantage of the native HTML5 or whatever pop-up functionality. I have not yet figured out how to block this.

Re:

[DarkRookie2]

Firefox for Android really only selling point is the fact it is not Chrome.

Re:

[fbobraga]

Apparently, i'ts has less resource heavy (at least with noscript): some sites are barely usable with Google Chrome in my Samsung Galaxy S5 (from 2012, with lineageos.org)

Re: Firefox on Android is the one

[aRTeeNLCH]

The Galaxy SIII is from 2012, the S5 is from 2014. I happen to have one of each in my household, though the S5 was purchased in 2015 (but before the release of the S6), in the hard to get / not sold in EU dual SIM version... I have updated the SIII to lineage, but since about a year, it's no longer supported. GaÃl Duval's /e/ does support it (supposedly), so I'll be looking there soon. Perhaps it can run FF70, I'll find out.

Keep Going - Not Good Enough Yet

[thechemic]

It should block cross-site tracking cookies FROM ALL SITES by default: not just social media.

Re:Keep Going - Not Good Enough Yet

[Rick Schumann]

Just install NoScript.

Re:Keep Going - Not Good Enough Yet

[twocows]

I personally like uMatrix. It's not configured this way out of the box, but you can set it up to disallow certain types of content categorically, such as scripts, images, css, media, etc. And then you can whitelist specific types of content on specific domains as you go to them. It's a neat system and if you're willing to spend the time to build a whitelist, it's the best one I can think of. It's basically a more powerful NoScript when set up like this.

Re:

[Rick Schumann]

I actually use Cookie Autodelete, NoScript, and uBlock Origin, along with HTTPS Everywhere.

Re:

[cayenne8]

Let me know when I can beyond a few different colors/skins.

Is that really your major deciding factor in all this?

Is "how pretty it looks" where you draw the line on browser choice?

Re:

[DarkRookie2]

Yeah. Why not. Not like there is really all that much differentiating FF from Chrome now.
I want Classic Theme Restorer. I like menus. I like my Download Status Bar with its options. Addons that cannot be used in FF any longer.

Re:

[Streetlight]

Form before function? I like some ability to modify the appearance of Firefox, but not at the expense of how things work.

Better

[DarkRookie2]

https://www.waterfox.net/ [waterfox.net]

Re:

[Luckyo]

It's pretty telling that google removed mobile waterfox it from play store recently while keeping firefox. Unlike firefox, it doesn't sell them user data, because it doesn't collect it.

And yet for 7 years you can't trust private mode

[babaloo]

https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=781982

We need a healthy Firefox

[xack]

Firefox and the browsers that are descended from it like Waterfox, Icecat and Pale Moon are all that is left from a Webkit/Blink monopoly on the web. Both of the original net giants Netscape and Internet Explorer are dead now and replaced by Chromium Edge we need to make sure that the "Phoenix" that Firefox emerged from keeps on going. If any of the Mozilla developers still read Slashdot, please make sure you listen to your power users and bring back browser freedom. Make sure every extension that was broken by the retirement of XUL gets a replacement and stop messing with the UI every five minutes. Seamonkey still has the same UI from 20 years ago, why can't Firefox has stability instead of developing "fidget spinner" UIs.

Re:

[DarkRookie2]

Firefox has long given up on people like us.
They just rather chase Chromes coat tails.
How much longer until FF is just another Chrome clone. I give it another 2 years.

Re:We need a healthy Firefox

[higuita]

Dear sir, you are talking bullsh*t!

Maybe in a far away past it was like that, now they know that their market is strongly pro-privacy.

Have you read their TOS and privacy disclaimers?
If you read then, you can see what they collect, why and to whom they share it... and you can control all of then if you want.
You can disable location, safe search, firefox sync, etc
Those are enabled by default because is what most people expect from a browser, but if you want, you can disable all of then

then you have the anonymous tracking they request on first run, but disabled by default, like what features you use in browser, email from any newsletter, submitting crash reports, etc. This you have to accept before they will send anything and you can disable that also.

the ones you can't directly control are usually anonymous (like where did you come from when downloading a firefox) and those that aren't, (like when you follow some link in their newsletters), they only get the basic info for the campaign analysis and then anonymize the results

Re:

[Waccoon]

You can't disable a lot of stuff. You can only hide it. Look at the source code for yourself to see what it actually does and doesn't. There's a reason Mozilla keeps needlessly renaming a lot of config settings, too -- to make sure things get set back to their defaults when you update.

I'll trust Firefox over Chrome any day, but there's a reason why I use a Firefox spin-off instead of the real thing.

Firefox fan here

[notdijkstra]

I switched from Chrome the day I started looking through my Google account settings and realized that ever freaking site I visited on Chrome was being tracked in an online history by Google.

Also, at this point Firefox is the only major browser that's developing its own rendering engine.

Firefox Focus

[kaka.mala.vachva]

What about Firefox Focus? It operates in private mode only - does the latest Firefox release have better privacy protection than Focus?

Re:

[Chromal]

Of course you have power to stop it, and many people take great pains to do so, especially after the late total subversion of the FCC by the criminal occupation of the US Executive branch.

Sounds like a great choice for iPhone

[WillAffleckUW]

Now just let my Privacy origin reset to Canada, since I'm a dual citizen and ... zero tracking.

Privacy is in the Canadian Constitution.

This could be just a competitive tactics.

[Moskit]

Food for thoughts...

This is perhaps more like Google promoting HTTPS to prevent others from having access to user intel.

Each major company is now trying to tie consumers to their platform: Google initiated migration to HTTPS-everything and recently stopped showing URLs in search results (sic!), social media and other platforms try to make every user stay within their "spysystem" so they can gather/use/sell as much data as possible.

Firefox is an offender of sort by itself - it enforces by default DNS over HT

If you believe that

[scdeimos]

If you believe that any browser has the capability to block social tracking... I've got a bridge to sell you.

What!

[slashdotit]

Why in hell is there any social tracking in there in the first place?

Just install NoScript AND

[NewYork]

Enable media/frame/font in its preferences for UNTRUSTED sites and enable all options for TRUSTED and DEFAULT sites;
And enable "Cascade top document's restrictions to subdocuments"