Enable Tracking Protection in Mozilla Firefox

Here’s a quick tip that not only helps you maintain some privacy but may also increase browsing speed in Firefox as well.

Recently introduced into Mozilla Firefox, there is a disabled capability which will be enabled in Firefox 39 (we’re on Firefox 36.0.5 at the time of writing). This functionality blocks all of those invisible trackers on websites that slowly build a profile about you based upon the sites you visit.

So, how do you turn it on right now?

1. In the Firefox address bar, type about:config and press Enter,
2. Click through the warning promising to be careful (no crossing your fingers),
3. In the search box, type in privacy.trackingprotection.enabled to narrow down the list,
4. Double click the entry to enabled the option,
5. Close the tab.

This will immediately enable tracking protection using a list from Disconnect.me and you’ll know when it has been invoked as you’ll see a little shield to the left of the website address.

This is better than the “Do Not Track” capability in modern browsers as it relied upon web servers and trackers to honour the declination to be tracked (which we now know is not the best implementation). Your browser should also benefit from having to execute less JavaScript and may improve page load speeds as a result.