The Firefox team announced a new security measure to be implemented in Firefox 88. The popular web browser introduces new protection against privacy leaks on the web. With the new limitations, trackers will not be able to abuse the window.name property to track users across websites.
Windows.name data leaking
The Mozilla team stated that data stored in window.name has been allowed by standard browser rules to leak between websites. It enables trackers to identify users or snoop on their browsing history. The window.name property is available to any visited website and stores any data the website to place there. According to the announcement, data stored in the window.name property was allowed by all major browsers to persist across page visits in the same tab.
Firefox will now clear the window.name property to prevent potential leakages. Firefox will also attempt to identify likely non-harmful usage of window.name and avoid clearing the property in such cases. To prevent leakages, Firefox restores the window.name property to its previous value for that website when the user navigates back to a previous website. Clearing and restoring window.name data effectively confine that data to the website where it was created is similar to how Firefox’s Total Cookie Protection confines cookies to the website where they were created.
FAQ
What is the latest version of Mozilla Firefox?
The latest version of Mozilla Firefox is Firefox 109 and it was released on 17 January 2023.
Is Firefox still used today?
Yes, Firefox is still widely used today. It is a popular web browser that is known for its speed, security, and privacy features. It continues to be a popular choice among users who value privacy and security when browsing the web.
Is Mozilla Firefox a Chinese company?
No, Mozilla Firefox is not a Chinese company. It is a free and open-source web browser developed and maintained by the Mozilla Foundation, a non-profit organization based in the United States.
Is Mozilla Firefox free?
Yes, Mozilla Firefox is a free and open-source web browser. It is available for Windows, macOS, and Linux operating systems and can be downloaded from the official Mozilla website. Firefox is free to use, download, and distribute, and it is supported by a community of developers and users who contribute to its development and maintenance.
What are the system requirements for running Mozilla Firefox?
For Windows
- Windows 7 or later
- Pentium 4 or newer processor that supports SSE2
- 512MB of RAM / 2GB of RAM for the 64-bit version
- 200MB of hard drive space
- macOS 10.12 or later
- Mac computer with an Intel x86 or Apple silicon processor
- 512 MB of RAM
- 200 MB hard drive space
- Firefox will not run at all without the following libraries or packages:
- glibc 2.17 or higher
- GTK+ 3.14 or higher
- libstdc++ 4.8.1 or higher
- X.Org 1.0 or higher (1.7 or higher is recommended)
- For optimal functionality, we recommend the following libraries or packages:
- DBus 1.0 or higher
- GNOME 2.16 or higher
- libxtst 1.2.3 or higher
- NetworkManager 0.7 or higher
- PulseAudio