Firefox said today that its Total Cookie Protection (TCP) feature, which protects users from trackers, is now available on Android. Cross-site tracking will be stopped by this feature, which will be turned on by default. This way, trackers won’t be able to collect information about how you use the Internet so that they can show you more relevant ads.
TCP came out in 2021, but it could only be used in Firefox’s ETP mode. So, users had to choose that level of security to stop cookies from being used to track them. Last year, the company made TCP available in all modes of Firefox for Windows, Mac, and Linux, and it was turned on by default. The browser doesn’t get rid of all the cookies. Instead, it keeps a “separate cookie jar” for each site to keep your information inside that silo.
TCP for Android will start rolling out to users today, and all users will be able to use it by the end of next month.
Unlike Firefox, Google has put off its plan to eliminate third-party cookies on Chrome. The change is now set to happen sometime in 2024.
Mozilla is also testing a new feature that lets a site’s sign-up process create a Firefox Relay, an email proxy service, on the spot. The company says that on some sites—Firefox didn’t say which—the tool will ask users if they want to use one of the existing proxy email addresses or make a new one. Mozilla says that this feature will be available to all users and more sites later this year.
