Facebook Container by Mozilla - A Firefox add-on to prevent Facebook tracking

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Mozilla is capitalizing on the recent fears over Facebook privacy and data by creating a new Firefox extension that stops Facebook from tracking your online habits. The new “Facebook Container” creates a blue-colored browser tab that isolates your Facebook session from the rest of your web activity. It’s designed to prevent Facebook from collecting what sites you visit, and targeting you with ads and other messages.

 

If you click a link on Facebook it will simply load in a new tab that’s isolated from the Facebook Container, and if you click Facebook share buttons on any other sites then it will load them within the special blue tab. While Mozilla’s new extension wouldn’t have prevented the Cambridge Analytica scandal, it will stop Facebook from tracking users outside of its own platform as you won’t be logged in to Facebook and seeing its share buttons and trackers on regular websites.

 

Facebook’s ad tracking technology allows the company to know when you’ve been shopping for items and present ads for those products directly on Facebook. It can be an irritating experience, especially if you’re shopping for a surprise present for a family member and the item keeps getting displayed over and over in your Facebook news feed.

 

Mozilla already blocks ads and trackers in its Firefox private browsing mode, but this new container simply makes it a lot easier to keep using Facebook and prevent the tracking. It could be a good alternative to entirely deleting your Facebook profile. It’s also worth looking at Facebook’s privacy settings to use the social network without providing all of your personal data.

 

www.theverge.com/2018/3/27/17167094/mozilla-firefox-facebook-container-tracker-blocker

 

 

What does it do?

Facebook Container works by isolating your Facebook identity into a separate container that makes it harder for Facebook to track your visits to other websites with third-party cookies.

 

How does it work?

Installing this extension deletes your Facebook cookies and logs you out of Facebook.

The next time you navigate to Facebook it will load in a new blue colored browser tab (the “Container”).

You can log in and use Facebook normally when in the Facebook Container. If you click on a non-Facebook link or navigate to a non-Facebook website in the URL bar, these pages will load outside of the container.

Clicking Facebook Share buttons on other browser tabs will load them within the Facebook Container. You should know that using these buttons passes information to Facebook about the website that you shared from.

 

Which website features will not function?

Because you will be logged into Facebook only in the Container, embedded Facebook comments and Like buttons in tabs outside the Facebook Container will not work. This prevents Facebook from associating information about your activity on websites outside of Facebook to your Facebook identity.

 

In addition, websites that allow you to create an account or log in using your Facebook credentials will generally not work properly. Because this extension is designed to separate Facebook use from use of other websites, this behavior is expected.

 

What does Facebook Container NOT protect against?

It is important to know that this extension doesn’t prevent Facebook from mishandling the data that it already has, or permitted others to obtain, about you. Facebook still will have access to everything that you do while you are on facebook.com, including your Facebook comments, photo uploads, likes, any data you share with Facebook connected apps, etc.

 

Rather than stop using a service you find valuable, we think you should have tools to limit what data others can obtain. This extension focuses on limiting Facebook tracking, but other ad networks may try to correlate your Facebook activities with your regular browsing. In addition to this extension, you can change your Facebook settings, use Private Browsing, enable Tracking Protection, block third-party cookies, and/or use Firefox Multi-Account Containers extension to further limit tracking.