Firefox 67: protection from cryptomining and fingerprinting

The Mozilla Foundation plans to offer protection from cryptomining and fingerprinting in the Firefox 67 version to improve the privacy of every user of the popular browser.

Protect against Cryptomining and fingerprinting by blocking JavaScript cryptominers and some attempts by webpages to collect fingerprints from users.

The Mozilla Foundation has revealed from 2018 that it had plans to improve privacy in Firefox. Since then, he has added some content exclusion options to Firefox 63, and has said he will add more protective features to future versions of Firefox.

So if the plan proceeds as planned, Firefox 67 will have options to block JavaScript cryptominers and some attempts to collect fingerprinting.

Cryptominers use the device's resources to perform mining, which causes CPU activity to grow and much more power. Depending on how the miner is tuned, it can slow down the entire end-user system.

Protection from the fingerprinting is not a new feature. The fingerprints collection refers to user profile creation techniques designed to better track. The technique uses information provided by the browser of each device. The Mozilla Foundation first made a choice of fingerprinting from Firefox to 41.

For those who are expecting the new cryptomining protection feature and improvements to fingerprint protection, the 67 release date is 14 May 2019.

The introduction of additional features to protect consumers seems to be delayed by Mozilla, who is accustomed to paying close attention to the privacy of its users. It remains to be seen whether the upcoming options will be enabled by default or come off.

Mozilla, Firefox 67 and reality

For the foundation Mozilla attention and sensitivity to user privacy appear to be one-way, as adding content exclusion options to Firefox will set it apart from its main browser opponent, Google Chrome.

On the other hand, if we want to make things a bit more realistic, the survival of the Mozilla Foundation depends on the company's agreements with the search engine companies. So it's doubtful whether Google or the other companies will choose a contract for Firefox to use a default search engine after blocking ads by default.