Mozilla today announced that the latest version of Firefox comes with a new feature called Tracking Protection, the feature enables Firefox’s Private Browsing mode to block ads and trackers. Mozilla says that it has created this feature to give users more choice and control over their web experience, it says that by launching this feature it’s giving users control over data that third parties receive when you are online.
In its blog post Mozilla mentions all other major web browsers by name, Chrome, Safari, Internet Explorer and Microsoft Edge, reiterating that no other Private Browsing mode protects users the way Firefox’s does.
When Private Browsing first arrived all it did was not save the browser history and cookies locally, but even with the mode turned on users don’t have control over the information that third parties get. Tracking Protection on Firefox for Windows, Mac, Android and Linux will not only actively block ads it also blocks social share buttons and analytics trackers that “may record your behavior without your knowledge across sites.”
A new Control Center has also been added in Firefox which shows security and privacy controls in a single place in the address bar, users can easily turn off Tracking Protection in Private Browsing for any particular site via the Control Center.
Ad blocking is a controversial subject, countless online publications rely upon the revenue generated from online ads to survive, blocking those ads is effectively killing their revenue. That hasn’t stopped people from flocking to ad blockers, even iOS 9 has similar features baked right in, so the debate continues while ad blocking technology gains even more popularity in one form or the other.