Mozilla this week released Firefox 67 to the stable channel with improved protection against tracking and with fingerprinting and crypto-mining protection capabilities.
The new feature builds on the previously introduced privacy-focused opt-in Tracking Protection on the desktop, Tracking protection by default on iOS, and the Facebook Container Extension, all of which were released last year.
According to Mozilla, its customers have long asked for features and services that respect online privacy, and it has already promised to tackle harmful practices like fingerprinting, which is used to track users across the web, and crypto-mining, which hijacks a computer’s CPU to generate crypto-currency for someone else’s benefit.
In Firefox 67, users can turn on features that allow them to stay protected from these nefarious practices. The options have been previously tested in the pre-release channels last month, the browser maker explains.
To enable the feature, users should click on the small “i” icon in the address bar, go to Content Blocking, and then click on the Custom gear on the right side. It can also be enabled from the Privacy & Security section in Preferences, by going to Content Blocking.
Mozilla also made changes to Private Browsing to provide users with additional control and improved protection. These include the option to register and save passwords from websites the same as in normal mode and the ability to decide which extensions should be enabled or disabled in Private Browsing.
When installing new extensions, the browser will ask if they should be allowed to run in Private Browsing (the default is Don’t Allow). For extensions installed before, users should go to the Add-Ons menu and enable or disable for Private Browsing.
Other features in the new Firefox release include a fully keyboard accessible browser toolbar, WebRender available for a small group of users, and smoother video playback with an AV1 Update (AV1 is a royalty-free video format jointly developed by Mozilla, Google, Microsoft, Amazon and others as part of the Alliance for Open Media (AOMedia)).
The browser also comes with improved performance due to prioritized management such as delayed scripts to make others faster, suspended idle tabs, and faster startup after customizations.
Related: Mozilla Bans Firefox Extensions Containing Obfuscated Code