Mozilla claims Firefox now most secure browser - as Microsoft kills off the least secure
Firefox turns on cookie tracking protection by default, while the axe finally falls on IE
Mozilla claims that Firefox is now the "most private and secure browser" for Windows, Mac and Linux after the non-profit rolled out Total Cookie Protection (TCP) by default to all users on Tuesday.
With Total Cookie Protection, cookies from any particular website are stored in their own separate container, to stop them being used to track users from site to site. This reduces the amount of data companies can gather from users' surfing activities to create individual profiles.
Mozilla says the way it is implemented means that few sites should break, which can sometime occur if users block all cookies manually. It also extends Firefox's Enhanced Tracking Protection feature, which blacklists organisations found to be engaging in intrusive tracking, preventing them from dropping third-party cookies.
The feature is the result of three years of experimentation, including with Firefox Focus, Mozilla's privacy-oriented mobile browser which has featured TCP since January and also deletes all history on closure.
As a further privacy measure, Mozilla builds anti-fingerprinting features into its browsers, to prevent another prevalent form of user tracking by websites.
Firefox is the only major web browser to be based on Mozilla's own Gecko rendering engine. The others - including Chrome, Vivaldi, Opera and Brave - are all based on the open source Chromium project. Microsoft also adopted Chromium in 2015 when it released its Edge Browser to replace Internet Explorer.
Launched in 1995 to compete with Netscape (which ultimately became Firefox), in 2003 Internet Explorer enjoyed a 95% market share, thanks in a large part to being bundled with Windows. This bundling ultimately drew the ire of regulators around the world.
The EU ordered Microsoft to offer other web browser choices with Windows, and fined the company with €561 million for failing to comply.
Internet Explorer (IE) had many security and privacy flaws and lacked compatibility with Google Chrome, which by 2015 was the dominant browser, beating IE hands down on performance and usability.
Edge was initially released for Windows 10 and Xbox One, and later versions emerged for Mac and Linux. However, until this week, Microsoft kept the two browsers operating in tandem.
The move to finally axe IE, 27 years after its launch, is not a surprise. Earlier this year, Microsoft said in a blog post that IE had become difficult to support alongside Edge and that the end was nigh.