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A digital fingerprint collates information about your PC’s hardware, software (like your operating system and browser), add-ons, preferences, and sometimes more like themes and customizations. Installing even just an ad-blocker makes for a smoother experience-no more accidental tapping on pop-ups, ads, or sponsored links you definitely didn’t want to visit.īeyond automatically keeping third-party cookies and trackers from gathering data about your browsing habits, Firefox also blocks fingerprinting, a more insidious method of monitoring people across the web. You’ll find recognizable options like uBlock Origin (ad-blocking), NoScript (control over JavaScript), HTTPS Everywhere (forces secure website connections where available), and more. While you’re limited to 17 add-ons to choose from, they cover the major bases for improving web surfing and security. Just like on desktop, you can install browser extensions in the mobile version of Firefox. Tired of annoying ads while browsing online with your smartphone? Android users are in luck. (Your tabs should be automatically restored.) You don’t need to reboot your whole system. Or, if you have the browser set to remember your browsing history, closing the app entirely and reopening it. But you can quickly fix that problem by using Firefox’s Task Manager to nuke and then bring back a tab gone amok. That said, Firefox can occasionally suffer from memory bloat as well, if you like to leave many tabs open for days. If your system resources get tied up by a cryptominer accessing your device, your PC will feel sluggish, including when you’re browsing online. Indirectly, this protective feature helps with browsing speed too. Keep them from running and your web surfing should feel much snappier.įirefox also stops cryptominers from accessing your device, aka cryptojacking-it’s when a website allows malicious code to use your computer to mine for cryptocurrency. Even if they’re running invisibly in the background, they’re still there. The more scripts that must load as part of a website, the more you’ll feel them. Speedier website browsingĪ fresh installation of Firefox automatically blocks trackers that can make browsing feel slow. And blocking autoplay video across the web by default is a easy, fast change in Firefox’s settings.
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Out of the box, audio is muted, and for YouTube, autoplay for both audio and video are blocked. Firefox, on the other hand, keeps tabs in hand by default. In Chrome, if you want to block sites that go hard with autoplay, you need to find and install a third-party extension.
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