The web works by storing little tidbits of information in your browser. Tokens that may represent where you’ve logged in, or what pages you’ve visited on a site allow webpages to deliver better experiences. These little pieces of data are called “cookies.” Normally, all of your cookies go into one place. That’s not very secure. While login tokens are hashed and protected against prying eyes, others, like browsing history or shopping history, are available for whoever would like to take a look. Facebook, for example, can see what you’ve been browsing on Amazon, then populate ads related to those products on Facebook.
Firefox, at first, used containers to separate these websites from one another. But unless you put every website in a container, some data is still going to leak out. Facebook may be automatically containerized, and you can use other containers to automatically wrap up Google or Amazon websites in their own “browser within a browser,” but other sites could still share information if not protected with containers.
That’s where Firefox’s new “Total Cookie Protection” (TCP) feature comes in. This prevents webpages from seeing the cookies from other webpages. It locks cookies to the website that created them. By doing so, they can stop cross-site tracking, making your experience on the web more private.
How it Works
Who took the cookie from the cookie jar? Facebook, typically. Google, perhaps. Really anyone could have taken a cookie from the cookie jar, that’s generally how it works. All of your cookies sit in one big jar, holding all of your data. Websites know which ones to grab, but the ones that are trying to violate your privacy can easily just grab one of the other websites’ cookies.
That’s where Mozilla’s new tool comes in handy. Instead of one big cookie jar, you have a bunch of smaller cookie jars. Each one stores only the cookies necessary for those websites. You may have some cookies, like single sign on services, which hop between cookie jars, but any tracking cookies stay locked away.
Now when you browse for shoes online, Facebook will be none the wiser.
It’s a similar concept to Facebook’s Container Tabs. These are tabs that act like their own browsers. They’re completely different data sets. That way, one website can’t track the activity in your browser elsewhere on the web, because it lives in its own little browser. As far as Facebook is concerned, I only use my browser for Facebook. It knows nothing outside of that container tab. With TCP, there’s almost nothing Facebook can use to find more information about me. You can set up containers for Amazon, Google, and others. I like to use them to make it easy to sign in to different websites with different accounts. Sure, I may have three YouTube accounts, and I could switch them with YouTube’s tool, but that takes far longer than just selecting the right tab container when I open a new tab.
Enabling Total Cookie Protection
TCP won’t be enabled by default. Instead, you’ll have to enable the “Strict” privacy mode, then reload all of your tabs if you weren’t using it already. To do this, open preferences by pressing Command and the comma key, or by going to the menu at the top of the screen (on macOS) and selecting Firefox > Preferences. On the left side, select Security & Privacy. You’ll see various privacy modes, Standard, Strict, and Custom. Select “Strict.” With that, you’ll block many trackers, as well as keep all of your cookies locked away in their own containers. It may make some websites, like those with embedded elements, display differently, but it’ll lock your browsing history away from those little spies.
One More Thing…
Mozilla didn’t just make Firefox more private than ever with this update. Somehow, total cookie protection wasn’t enough. They’ve also added unlimited picture-in-picture. Ever want to have 9 YouTube videos up on your screen at once? Of course you have! Who hasn’t? Watch one video? That’s so 2020. 2021’s the year you start watching 9 videos at once, all at 2x speed because, for some reason, YouTube still doesn’t go up to 3x speed. One day.
Firefox is my browser of choice. The privacy, performance, and add-ons make it a browser that really shines. I just love how easy it is to close websites off from each other so your privacy is protected as you browse the web. Safari offers tracking protection, but nothing that comes close to Firefox’s measures. Google Chrome is a privacy violation. But Firefox? That was made to make browsing the web fast and safe. With its latest update, it’s gotten even cooler. If you haven’t yet, definitely give Firefox a spin.
Sources:
- Juli Clover, MacRumors
- Natasha Lomas, TechCrunch
- Ivan Mehta, The Next Web
- Mozilla
- Michael Potuck, 9to5Mac