Firefox Rolls Out Total Cookie Protections By Default To All Users



Firefox announced that it is rolling out Total Cookie Protection by default to all Firefox users worldwide, making Firefox the most private and secure major browser available across Windows, Mac and Linux.

According to Firefox, Total Cookie Protection is Firefox’s strongest privacy protection to date, confining cookies to the site where they were created, thus preventing tracking companies from using these cookies to track your browsing from site to site.

Total Cookie Protection works by creating a separate “cookie jar” for each website you visit. Instead of allowing trackers to link up your behavior on multiple sites, they just get to see the behavior on individual sites. Any time a website, or third-party-content embedded in a website deposits a cookie in your browser, that cookie is confined to the cookie jar assigned only to that website.

No other websites can reach into cookie jars that don’t belong to them and find out what the other websites’ cookies know about you – giving you freedom from invasive ads and reducing the amount of information companies gather about you.

Firefox says that this approach strikes the balance between eliminating the worst privacy properties of third-party-cookies – in particular the ability to track you – and allowing those cookies to fulfill their less invasive use cases (e.g. to provide accurate analytics). With Total Cookie Protection in Firefox, people can enjoy better privacy and have the great privacy experience they’ve come to know and expect.

Engadget reported that Mozilla launched the Total Cookie Protection feature in 2021 and previously enabled it by default only when users switch on Firefox’s privacy mode. Now, all Firefox users on desktop can enjoy the benefits it brings without having to toggle anything on.

According to Engadget, Microsoft’s Edge also has tools to block tracking cookies, but users have to manually switch to “Strict” mode to be able to prevent most cookies from tracking them across websites. DuckDuckGo’s browser has a focus on privacy, but its search agreement with Microsoft prevents it from blocking certain trackers.

Apple has instructions for Safari users who want to prevent cross-site tracking in Safari on Mac. There are simple directions for how do that. There is also an option to block all cookies. However, Safari warns that that some websites may not work if you enable Safari to block all cookies.

Overall, I’m happy with Safari. I’m going to start using Firefox when I look at social media sites because I think it will do a better job of preventing tracking and blocking cookies. If you use Safari’s “block all cookies” function – it makes websites unusable.