Interesting new Firefox feature

[masraum]

I haven't enabled it yet (just found it) but will be.

https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/enhanced-tracking-protection-firefox-desktop

Not the entire article linked above, but enough for you to get the idea.

Enhanced Tracking Protection in Firefox for desktop

Enhanced Tracking Protection is a collection of Firefox features that protect your privacy while you browse. It blocks many of the trackers that follow you around online to collect information about your browsing habits and interests. It also includes protections against harmful scripts, such as malware that drains your battery.

Though these are invisible protections, you can see what’s being blocked on individual pages by clicking the shield shield detected 70 to the left of the address bar. To see what’s been blocked on all sites over the past week, click the menu button menu button retina and select Privacy Protections.

What Enhanced Tracking Protection blocks

Firefox uses a list of known trackers provided by Disconnect. By default, Firefox blocks the following types of trackers and scripts.

Social media trackers
Cross-site tracking cookies
Cryptominers
Tracking content in Private Windows only. These trackers are hidden in ads, videos, and other in-page content. Blocking them can cause some websites to break. To add this protection in all windows, visit your privacy preferences and select Strict or Custom as explained below.

To learn more about trackers and scripts blocked by Firefox, see the article Trackers and scripts Firefox blocks in Enhanced Tracking Protection.

[kach22i]

I think they changed the SafeSearch on/off feature too.

Once you do get loaded up with unwanted Trackers and Cookies, you can clean them out with CCleaner free.

https://www.ccleaner.com/ccleaner/update?a=0&v=5.63.7540&t=4&au=1

However, one must take the time to select all your favorite websites like Pelican Parts and move them to the "exlude" side of the dialog box, else all your log-in and passwords get wiped out too.

A lot of websites ask for you to disengage your private browsing feature temporarily so that you can read the articles or watch videos. Just saying increasing to a higher level of private browsing may make accessing sites even more difficult - even though you will be safer.

[masraum]

Originally Posted by kach22i

I think they changed the SafeSearch on/off feature too.

Once you do get loaded up with unwanted Trackers and Cookies, you can clean them out with CCleaner free.

https://www.ccleaner.com/ccleaner/update?a=0&v=5.63.7540&t=4&au=1

However, one must take the time to select all your favorite websites like Pelican Parts and move them to the "exlude" side of the dialog box, else all your log-in and passwords get wiped out too.

A lot of websites as for your to disengage your private browsing feature temporarily so that you can read the articles or watch videos. Just saying increasing to a higher level of private browsing may make accessing sites even more difficult - even though you will be safer.

Yeah, which is similar to using NoScript. You've got to enable some scripts on some sites to use the sites. On top of that, some sites have 20, 30, 50 different sources of scripts and figuring out which you need and don't need can be a bit of a pain. I often just assume that if the site is that dirty/messy, then I don't need to go to that site.

I've even had a few sites where with everything enabled, it still doesn't work, which is when I crack out Chrome or as a last resort MSIE.

I'm happy to trade off a little convenience for increased speed and security.

[Scott Douglas]

I was amazed at how many tracking cookies CCleaner removed when I used the updated version for the first time. I usually do remove all cookies, but this time it found some that weren't removed before for some reason.

[sc_rufctr]

I run a version of Linux with the Opera browser. Good luck tracking me

[Oracle]

Originally Posted by sc_rufctr

I run a version of Linux with the Opera browser. Good luck tracking me

Nowadays we're tracked by having the cookies and by not having them too.. Like after removing them or on a new computer, your IP is the same...
Its kind of weird but we can't escape The Facebooks of the world

[masraum]

Originally Posted by sc_rufctr

I run a version of Linux with the Opera browser. Good luck tracking me

I suspect they can/do.
See what these sites say about you.
https://amiunique.org/
https://panopticlick.eff.org/
Unique Machine

https://pixelprivacy.com/resources/browser-fingerprinting/

Uniquemachine didn't work for me at all because I didn't allow script from the site to run (at least, I assume it didn't run, the page never loaded, but then maybe it still got enough info to fingerprint my machine)

But mine was easily fingerprinted even without the ability to run javascript.

[masraum]

How to help protect against browser tracking/fingerprinting
https://panopticlick.eff.org/about#defend-against

Is it possible to defend against browser fingerprinting?

Browser fingerprinting is quite a powerful method of tracking users around the Internet. There are some defensive measures that can be taken with existing browsers, but none of them are ideal. In practice, the most realistic protection is using the Tor Browser, which has put a lot of effort into reducing browser fingerprintability. For day-to-day use, the best options are to run tools like Privacy Badger or Disconnect that will block some (but unfortunately not all) of the domains that try to perform fingerprinting, and/or to use a tool like NoScript for Firefox, which greatly reduces the amount of data available to fingerprinters.

Use the Tor Browser

The Tor Project has spent considerable effort trying to "standardize" various browser characteristics like the User Agent string, in order to prevent them from being used to track Tor users. In response to Panopticlick and other fingerprinting experiments, the Tor Browser now includes patches to prevent font fingerprinting (by restricting which fonts websites can use) and Canvas fingerprinting (by detecting reads to HTML5 Canvas objects and asking users to approve them). The Tor Browser can also be configured to aggressively block JavaScript. Taken together, these measures make the Tor Browser a strong defense against fingerprinting. Unfortunately, browsing through Tor is currently a lot slower than browsing without it.

Disable JavaScript

Disabling JavaScript is a powerful defense against browser fingerprinting, because it cuts off the methods that websites can use to detect plugins and fonts, as well as preventing the use of most kinds of supercookie. Unfortunately, JavaScript is necessary to make a lot of sites work well.

At least two ways to block some sites from using JavaScript while allowing others to use it are available. One, NoScript, is more of a power-user tool than a solution for everyone: it will block JavaScript everywhere and allow you to manually reenable it for some sites. This is a lot of work, and requires good intuitions about when a site isn't working because JavaScript is disabled. Common adblocking tools tend to be quite good at blocking ads, because users can instantly see when they're present. Tracking or fingerprinting scripts are generally invisible, so even if users enable features that focus on privacy, some trackers may still slip past the net.

Try to use a "non-rare" browser

The most obvious way to try to prevent browser fingerprinting is to pick a "standard", "common" browser. It turns out that this is surprisingly hard to do. It appears that the most likely candidate would be the latest version of Chrome running on a modern Windows version. But even so, many of those Chrome on Windows browsers can be distinguished from one another by the enormous range of plugin versions and fonts that can be installed with them. The first generations of smartphone browsers were comparatively hard to fingerprint, but as these devices have become more diverse and supported wider ranges of features, they have also become very fingerprintable.

I think other than using TOR with no javascript, you're probably screwed unless you just don't get on the 'Net.

[Bob Kontak]

Hijack warning..........

Can someone using Firefox hit control alt delete and check their task manager to see how many instances of Firefox are running?

I have about seven and I don't know why. Home computer and shop computer.

[masraum]

Originally Posted by Bob Kontak

Hijack warning..........

Can someone using Firefox hit control alt delete and check their task manager to see how many instances of Firefox are running?

I have about seven and I don't know why. Home computer and shop computer.

That's been very normal for Firefox for a while now.

Chrome does it too.

[Bob Kontak]

Originally Posted by masraum

That's been very normal for Firefox for a while now.

Chrome does it too.

Thank you. I don't see a degradation of performance. Just odd.

[masraum]

Originally Posted by Bob Kontak

Thank you. I don't see a degradation of performance. Just odd.

Yep, I had the same reaction as you when I first noticed it.

[john70t]

I was confused about it as well.

https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2017/06/firefox-multiple-content-processes/
In theory, moving to multiple content processes will improve stability and performance (one bad tab won't slow down the rest of your computer).

You can disable the use of multi-processes, but it might break other things:
https://silicophilic.com/disable-firefox-multiple-processes-task-manager/