Security News > 2021 > February > Mozilla Firefox keeps cookies kosher with quarantine scheme, 86s third-party cookies in new browser build

Mozilla has revised the way the latest build of the Firefox browser handles HTTP cookies to prevent third-parties from using them to track people online, as part of improvements in build 86 of the code.

The third-party cookies placed by these scripts can be read on other websites that also load tracking code and are often used to follow people from website to website in order to build interest profiles for behavioral ad targeting.

In a blog post on Tuesday, Mozillans Tim Huang, Johann Hofmann and Arthur Edelstein said that Firefox, as part of its Enhanced Tracking Protection Strict Mode, now includes a feature called Total Cookie Protection that creates a separate partitioned space for cookies so they can only be accessed by the website that created them.

Total Cookie Protection represents a more accessible take on First Party Isolation, a privacy technology added to Firefox 55 in August, 2017 that was inspired by Tor's Cross-Origin Identifier Unlinkability.

As the trio of Mozillans explain, "Total Cookie Protection makes a limited exception for cross-site cookies when they are needed for non-tracking purposes, such as those used by popular third-party login providers."

The three Mozillans contend that Total Cookie Protection, in conjunction with the supercookie protection that debuted last month in Firefox 85 will "Prevent websites from being able to 'tag' your browser, thereby eliminating the most pervasive cross-site tracking technique."

News URL

https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2021/02/24/firefox_cookies_86/