Mozilla Releases Firefox Pre-Beta With Improved Private Browsing

Mozilla has released an early version of its new Firefox browser. This so-called pre-beta includes additional privacy features. This is to prevent websites from collecting information about the Firefox user.

According to the browser maker, the new software contains a tool that automatically blocks content with which websites try to obtain information from the user. This concerns, for example, analytics software or social plugins. It’s an addition to the private browsing mode Firefox already had; this ensured that visited websites did not appear in history, but did not protect against information gathering by website makers.

Because not all websites work equally well when all kinds of tracking plugins are blocked, Mozilla has built in an optional unblocking function. There is also a Control Center where users can adjust their privacy settings. Mozilla wants users to test the feature and send feedback so that improvements can be made.

In addition, Mozilla has built in a way to verify add-ons in the pre-beta. This should improve the security of the add-ons by preventing users from installing potentially malicious fake versions. Therefore, in the pre-beta, unauthenticated add-ons are blocked. Mozilla will probably also implement this in its final version of the browser, although there is also a possibility to disable authentication.