Mozilla announced it has started rolling out Total Cookie Protection to Firefox users on desktop to protect user privacy. It is unclear when users will get this. If you’re confused or wondering how to check Total Cookie Protection is enabled in Firefox and how to turn it on and verify after that, we’ve got you covered. Continue to read on for more details.
What is Total Cookie Protection?
In simple terms, Firefox isolates Cookies to that site only. This is called “State Partitioning”. or “dynamic First Party isolation“.
With Trackers or embedded content on a website, those third-party cookies are confined to those sites and won’t recognize or know you when you visit other websites.
Firefox still allows sites to set third-party cookies but will be limited to that site they were on.
This took a lot of years for Mozilla. The company wants to ensure blocking or restricting third-party cookies in a separate cookie jar for each website doesn’t interrupt users’ browsing experience.
Image Credit: Mozilla
Firefox (and Firefox Focus) had this feature with Strict Enhanced Tracking Protection and Private browsing by default for some time now. The organization introduced this with Firefox 86, now the company is enabling it for all users in Standard mode for Firefox in Windows, Mac, and Linux.
Its worth noting Safari has features present for a long time.
Firefox on Android still doesn’t have Total Cookie Protection unless Mozilla turns it on in the future.
As we told above, though Mozilla confirmed that all Firefox users on dekstop around the world will get Total Cookie Proteciton, the company hasn’t provided clarity on which Firefox version will have the feature.
How to enable Total Cookie Protection in Firefox
- Click on Menu and select Settings
- Go to Privacy & Security
- Under Browser Privacy > Enhanced Tracking Protection
- Choose Custom
- Click the dropdown arrow for cookies and select “cross-site tracking cookies, and isolate other cross-site cookies”
- Done, restart Firefox.
Or
- Visit about: config
- Search for cookie, find Pref network.cookie.cookieBehavior
- Change its value from 4 to 5, exit, and restart Firefox.
Note: By setting the above pref value to 5, we’ve manually turned on the Protection. With a future update, the company makes the change automatically.
Keep in Mind when Firefox gets the feature automatically the same cookie protection will be available out of the box in Standard mode. Since we’ve manually enabled the protection, Firefox is showing we’re using Custom mode.
Mozilla has invested a lot of time and after thorough testing, they’ve made the feature available to all users. If Total Cookie Proteciton has broken any sites, you can disable it, here is how.
How to disable Total Cookie Protection in Firefox
- Go to Settings
- Privacy & Security > Enhanced Tracking Protection >Custom
- Ensure Cookies is chosen and select the “Cross-site tracking cookies” option in the dropdown.
- Close and reopen the Firefox browser.
Or
- Visit about:config in the address bar
- Search for “cookie“,
- in the highlighted results, find pref “network.cookie.cookieBehavior” and set its value to 4.
You should refrain from using hidden Total Cookie Protection pref as it is not permanent and could disappear with future updates.
Final words: Finally, Mozilla has brought Total Cookie Protection to the public with Standard Enhanced Tracking Protection in Firefox. The feature means less tracking and more privacy to you, here is how it can be enabled or disabled if it causes issues.
Has your Firefox got TCP? Are you making a switch from Chrome to Firefox for this? Let us know in the comments below.
More on Firefox:
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Firefox 98 arriving today: here is what’s new, changed and Fixed
