The latest version of Mozilla’s Firefox web browser is here, and among other things it rolls out stronger privacy protection as well as protection from annoyances like videos that autoplay when you load a website.

While Firefox already has a Block Autoplay feature, it only applied to videos with autoplaying audio. Now users can opt to stop all videos from automatically playing.

As for the privacy, Firefox 69 blocks all third-party tracking cookies and cryptominers by default, and there’s optional support for blocking fingerprinting.

Those are some of the most noteworthy high-level changes, but there are some other updates that could affect browser performance for some users in some scenarios:

  • macOS: Improved battery life and download experience
  • Windows 10: Improvements for setting content process priority levels
  • Windows 10 May 2019 update or newer: Web Authentication HmacSecret extension support via Windows Hello (for more passwordless logins)

Mozilla has also added “best of Pocket” content suggestions to the new tab page for users in the US or anyone using an en-US version of the web browser. But you can remove this section from the new tab page if you find it spammy or irrelevant.

Firefox 69 release notes

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5 replies on “Firefox 69 blocks third-party trackers and autoplay videos”

  1. The best part is now Firefox can block Netflix from auto-playing trailers. That annoys the heck out of me.

  2. One point of contention is the fact that they disabled userchrome.css or usercontent.css by default, and consider these to be “legacy” methods of customization. This won’t affect a lot of users (including me), but the users who ARE affected are going to be VERY upset about it. Exhaustively customizing the look of the browser (and sites) takes a significant amount of effort, and to see Mozilla disregard and disable your efforts comes off as downright insulting. It’s a big part of why there was so much backlash when they got rid of all the XUL extensions.

  3. Do these changes mean your affiliate links won’t track? Just curious with these changes.

  4. These are great new features. Mozilla has been working hard to make Firefox a fantastic browser. Blocking fingerprinting is a feature I have been wanting for a while.

Comments are closed.