Mozilla is always busy adding newer protections in the Firefox web browser for the privacy and security of the Firefox users. This is whenever people want a secure web browser for carrying out online trasactions and online shopping, they trust Firefox without thinking twice. And now Mozilla has added two more layers of protection in Firefox to prevent cryptominer and fingerprinter scripts.
A cryptominer script gets loaded when you visit a specially designed webpage and uses your system resources to mine cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin or Ethereum for other people. When cryptominer scripts are running, they consume your CPU power and drain your battery without your permission. Similarly, a fingerprinter script scans your system to find your system specs, and uses this digital fingerprint to track you down across multiple websites.
Both the cryptominer and fingerprinter scripts violate your privacy and abuse your system resources without your permission. Starting with the Firefox version 67, you can enable protection against cryptominer and fingerprinter. Here is how:
- Launch Firefox, click on the menu and select Options from there. Alternatively, you can type about:preferences in the address bar and press Enter.
- Select the Privacy and Security section.
- Choose Custom under Content Blocking.
- Select the options Cryptominers and Fingerprinters.
- Click on the Reload all Tabs button.
After enabling these protections, Firefox will block any scripts loading from some known cryptominer and fingerprinter servers. Mozilla uses the database from Disconnect to identify and block these known servers. As soon as Mozilla sees a webpage trying to load scripts from these known malicious servers, it blocks the connection and prevents you from becoming another victim of a large scale fingerprinting or cryptomining campaign. These options are available starting from Firefox version 67 and work on all the supported platforms.
For more information about cryptominer and fingerprinter protection in Firefox, you can read Mozilla’s blog post at https://blog.mozilla.org/futurereleases/2019/04/09/protections-against-fingerprinting-and-cryptocurrency-mining-available-in-firefox-nightly-and-beta/.