Enhanced Tracking Protection in Firefox for desktop

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  • Revision id: 186947
  • Created:
  • Creator: Joni
  • Comment: added link
  • Reviewed: Yes
  • Reviewed:
  • Reviewed by: heyjoni
  • Is approved? Yes
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Enhanced Tracking Protection is a collection of Firefox features that protect your privacy while you browse. It blocks many of the trackers that follow you around online to collect information about your browsing habits and interests. It also includes protections against harmful scripts, such as malware that drains your battery.

Though these are invisible protections, you can see what’s being blocked on individual pages by opening the shield etp 70 purple to the left of your address bar. See what’s been blocked over the past week by entering about:protections into your address bar to visit your privacy protections page.

What Enhanced Tracking Protection blocks

Firefox uses a list of known trackers provided by Disconnect. By default, Firefox blocks the following types of trackers and scripts.

  • Social media trackers
  • Cross-site tracking cookies
  • Fingerprinters
  • Cryptominers
  • Tracking content in Private Windows only. These trackers are hidden in ads, videos, and other in-page content. Blocking them can cause websites to break. To add this protection in all windows, visit your privacy preferences and select Strict or Custom under Enhanced Tracking Protection.
Learn more about the trackers and scripts that Firefox blocks.

How to tell when Firefox is protecting you

  • etp 70 purple - Purple: Firefox blocked trackers and harmful scripts on a site. Open the shield to see what was blocked.
  • etp 70 gray - Gray: No known trackers or harmful scripts were detected on a site.
  • crossed gray 70 etp - Gray and crossed out: Enhanced Tracking Protection is turned off on a site. Open the shield and toggle the switch to turn it back on.

How to tell what’s being blocked on a site

Open the shield to see what Firefox has blocked.

etp 70 panel

This panel will display different information depending on the site you’re on.

  • Blocked: Firefox blocked these trackers and scripts. Select each one to see a detailed list.
  • Allowed: These trackers and scripts loaded on the page. This is either because blocking them could cause the website to break, or because you’ve adjusted your privacy preferences to allow them.
  • None: Detected Firefox looked for these trackers and scripts, but did not find them on this site.
  • Select Protection Settings to adjust your global privacy settings.
  • Select Show Report to view everything that’s been blocked over the past week.

What to do if a site seems broken

If a site seems broken, try turning off Enhanced Tracking Protection. It allows trackers to load on that site only. Enhanced Tracking Protection will continue to block trackers on other sites.

  1. Open the shield etp 70 purple.
  2. Toggle the switch at the top of the panel.
    etp switch on 70
  3. The page will reload automatically and allow trackers on this site only.
  4. Follow the same process to turn Enhanced Tracking Protection back on.
You may encounter breakage on some sites when you’re in Strict Enhanced Tracking Protection. This is because trackers are hidden in some content. For example, a website might embed an outside video or social media post that contains trackers. To block the trackers, Firefox must also block the content itself.

Trackers are often hidden in the following types of content:

  • Login fields
  • Forms
  • Payments
  • Comments
  • Videos

Adjust your global Enhanced Tracking Protection settings

When you download Firefox, all protections included in Standard Enhanced Tracking Protection are already enabled.

Standard Enhanced Tracking Protection

By default, Firefox blocks the following on all sites.

  • Social media trackers
  • Cross-site tracking cookies
  • Fingerprinters
  • Cryptominers
  • Tracking content in private browsing windows only

Strict Enhanced Tracking Protection

To further increase your privacy settings, select Strict Enhanced Tracking Protection. This blocks more trackers and tracking content in all windows. Strict makes pages load faster, but may break some buttons, forms, and login fields.

  1. Open the shield etp 70 purple to the left of your address bar.
  2. Click Protections Settings.
  3. Select the Strict option under Enhanced Tracking Protection.
  4. Select the Reload All Tabs button to apply your new privacy settings.

If something’s broken or not working while in Strict, you can temporarily turn off protections on individual sites directly from the address bar.

Custom Enhanced Tracking Protection

Want to block some trackers and scripts, but not others? Use Custom Enhanced Tracking Protection.

  1. Open the shield etp 70 purple to the left of your address bar.
  2. Click Protections Settings.
  3. Select Custom.
  4. Choose which trackers and scripts to block.
  5. Select the Reload All Tabs button to apply your new privacy settings.

You can also turn all protections off in Custom, which will allow all trackers and scripts to load and effectively disable the feature.

  1. Select Custom.
  2. Deselect the Trackers checkbox.
  3. Deselect the Cookies checkbox.
  4. Deselect the Cryptominers checkbox.
  5. Deselect the Fingerprinters checkbox.
  6. Click the Reload All Tabs button to apply your new privacy settings.