Mozilla has enhanced Firefox's Facebook Container extension to help limit the social media service from tracking users across the web. Data privacy remains a troubling issue, and Facebook, more than any other platform, has faced serious accusations in recent years regarding the way it collects and uses data and information.
Being the world's most popular social media platform, Facebook has access to almost a quarter of the world's population. The company has often used this access in ways that many might argue is highly questionable. Data collection, data protection and tracking of user's online behavior have always been topics of contention when it comes to Facebook, with concerns raised even more following the 2016 US Presidential election and the UK's Brexit referendum. Then came the Cambridge Analytica scandal which revealed the extend to which Facebook's user data could be used for targeted political campaigns and misinformation.
These concerns regarding data collection and tracking are likely to have promoted some users to reconsider their browser choice in the hope of better privacy, and with version 2.1.0 of the Facebook Container, Mozilla is looking to further reassure users of its security credentials. The Container, which prevents Facebook from tracking users' activity when on other websites through cookies, is not new. However, the latest version makes the solution more prominent by providing an option to install it as soon as users upgrade to Firefox 74.
How Firefox's Facebook Container Works
Facebook can track users on third-party websites that have embedded Facebook 'like' and 'share' options. The Container stops Facebook from tracking in this way by drawing a boundary around the social media platform, as well as other Facebook-owned sites, such as Instagram and Messenger. To do this, Firefox loads Facebook (and the other sites) in a special tab, with a fence icon in the address bar, and this effectively makes Facebook blind to what the user is doing outside of the container. However, installing the Container disables the ability for users to log into other websites using their Facebook ID, or use the embedded 'share' or 'like' options. The new update gets around this issue by letting users add the websites they want into the Container. This can be done by clicking the fence near the 'Firefox Account' icon in the top-right corner of the tab - although this will then give Facebook access to the activity on that website.
Containers are not just limited to Facebook. Firefox also has a Multi-Account Containers add-on which lets the user customize containers for different uses, such as personal or work, stopping websites in one container from tracking websites in the other. However, if Facebook is included in one of the Multi-Account Containers, then the dedicated Facebook Container won't work. With the 2020 US Presidential election looming, it will be interesting to see how well this Firefox extension can defend users against data collection methods that might be used to target voters. In terms of Facebook specifically, the company has been facing continuous pressure to ban political ads, although it has yet to do so.
Source: Mozilla