Today saw the launch of Mozilla Firefox 102, which includes a new privacy feature that removes tracking-related information from URLs.
Custom URL query parameters are used by several businesses, including Facebook, Marketo, Olytics, and HubSpot, to measure link clicks.
An example of one of these URLs is shown below. Facebook, for instance, appends a fbclid query parameter to outbound links in order to track clicks.
https://www.example.com/?fbclid=IwAR4HesRZLTfxhhh3nZ7WKsOpaiFzsg4nH0K4WLRHw1h467GdRjaLilWbLs
When you access a URL by clicking on a link or by pasting it directly into the address bar, Firefox 102’s new “Query Parameter Stripping” feature from Mozilla automatically removes numerous query parameters that are used for tracking.
Once enabled, when you click on links or paste a URL into the address bar, Mozilla Firefox will now remove the following tracking parameters from URLs:
oly enc id=, oly anon id=
Drip: __s=
Vero’s vero id is.
_hsenc= (HubSpot)
mkt tok= in Marketo
Facebook: mc eid= and fbclid=
BleepingComputer made a test page with connections to example.com and the aforementioned tracking parameters to show how this functions.
The link for https://example.com/?fbclid=12 opens https://example.com without the tracking parameter, as you can see in the screenshot below, when I click on it.
While this is a fantastic start, the privacy-focused Brave Browser currently prevents extra trackers that are not being filtered.
How to make the new privacy feature operational
A component of Firefox’s Enhanced Tracking Protection is the new Query Parameter Stripping capability.
Go to Firefox Settings, click on Privacy & Security, then adjust “Enhanced Tracking Protection” to “Strict” to activate query parameter stripping.
Even with Strict mode selected, these tracking parameters will not be removed in Private Mode.
Enter about:config, search for strip, and set the ‘privacy.query stripping.enabled.pbmode’ option to true as seen below to activate the feature in Private Mode as well.
It should be noted that using some websites may have problems if Enhanced Tracking Protection is set to Strict.
Set it back to Standard (which removes this feature) or the Custom setting, which will require some tinkering, if you allow this feature and discover that websites are not functioning properly.
