Mozilla is planning to block the “browser fingerprinting” tracking in its Firefox browser.
Browser fingerprinting is a very accurate method for identifying the unique browser and tracking online activities. In other words, it is an extremely powerful method that allows websites to track and collect information about the operating systems, browser type or version, active extensions, language, screen resolution, installed fonts, etc. Unlike cookies, this method does not require any user consent and is generally harder to block.
All of the collected information will not necessarily reveal your identity, but it will present a great value for advertising purposes in targeting certain groups.
Mozilla would like to somewhat reduce the data being collected in the fingerprinting method. For example, Mozzila plans not to send battery status information for a device or the precise size of the browser window since the company feels that this information is not very useful.
Although this change will somewhat improve user privacy for Firefox users it might also pose problems for some online games that require a browser to report the exact mouse cursor position.
The new Firefox browser-fingerprinting setup can be switched on manually for testing purposes, while in the next update this feature will be switched on by default.