The Mozilla Foundation plans to offer protection against cryptomining and fingerprinting in Firefox version 67 to improve the privacy of every user of the popular browser.
Cryptomining and fingerprinting protection by blocking JavaScript cryptominers and certain attempts by websites to collect fingerprints from users.
The Mozilla Foundation revealed back in 2018 that it had plans to improve privacy in Firefox. It has since added some content blocking options in Firefox 63, and has said it will add more protective features in future versions of Firefox.
So if the plan goes ahead as planned, Firefox 67 will have options to block JavaScript cryptominers and some fingerprinting collection attempts.
Cryptominers use the device's resources to mine, which causes increased CPU activity and significantly more power consumption. Depending on how the miner is configured, it can slow down the end user's entire system.
Fingerprinting protection is not a new feature. Fingerprinting refers to techniques for creating user profiles for better tracking. The technique uses information provided by each device's browser. The Mozilla Foundation first made an option to block fingerprinting available in Firefox in version 41.
For those waiting for the new cryptomining protection feature and fingerprinting protection improvements, the Firefox 67 release date is May 14, 2019.
The introduction of additional features to protect consumers seems to be delayed by Mozilla, which is usually very careful about protecting its users' privacy. It remains to be seen whether the upcoming options will be enabled by default or will be disabled.
Mozilla, Firefox 67 and the reality
For the Mozilla , attention and sensitivity to user privacy seems to be the only way forward, because adding content blocking options to Firefox will set it apart from its main rival browser, Google Chrome.
On the other hand, if we want to look at things a little more realistically, the survival of the Mozilla Foundation depends on the company's agreements with search engine companies. So it's doubtful that Google or other companies will opt for a contract to make Firefox a default search engine, since it will block ads by default.
