Firefox 85 cracks down on supercookies (blog.mozilla.org)

Article summary

Firefox 85 introduces a new feature that partitions network connections and caches by the website being visited, making it harder for trackers to use supercookies to follow users across the web. This change is part of Mozilla's ongoing efforts to reduce tracking and improve user privacy. The feature is designed to prevent trackers from abusing browser features to store user identifiers and track users across websites. The change is expected to have a modest impact on page load times.

Main themes

• browser privacy
• tracking protection
• Firefox vs Chrome
• performance comparison
• web standards
• privacy trade-offs
• browser configuration

What commenters say

• Some users prefer Firefox over Chrome due to its stronger privacy features and anti-tracking measures.
• Others have noticed performance issues with Firefox, particularly when using Google websites, and have resorted to using Chrome for those specific sites.
• Google's implementation of pre-standard protocols and optimization of its websites for Chrome can make Firefox seem slower or less functional.
• The default settings of Firefox do not provide sufficient privacy protection, and users need to configure the browser themselves to achieve better privacy.
• Firefox's lack of support for certain WebRTC features and video encoding technologies can limit its functionality for some web apps.
• The use of a JIT-backed JavaScript engine in Chromium can provide better performance for certain types of web applications.
• Some users are willing to accept slower performance in exchange for improved privacy and security features.
• The effectiveness of Firefox's privacy features is disputed, with some arguing that the browser's defaults do not go far enough to protect user privacy.