Firefox Custom Privacy Settings: Cookie and Tracker Toggles

This article provides a comprehensive breakdown of the specific cookie and tracker categories that users can manually toggle within the Custom Enhanced Tracking Protection settings of the Mozilla Firefox web browser. By choosing the Custom option over the Standard or Strict presets, users gain granular control to selectively block or allow cross-site cookies, tracking content, cryptominers, and digital fingerprinters based on their personal privacy needs.

When you select the Custom radio button under Firefox's Enhanced Tracking Protection settings, you are presented with five specific checkboxes. You can toggle each of these categories on or off independently.

1. Cookies

Toggling the Cookies category blocks websites from storing small data files on your computer that are commonly used to track your behavior across different websites. When checked, Firefox provides a dropdown menu allowing you to select the exact scope of the block:

  • Cross-site tracking cookies, and isolate other cross-site cookies: Blocks known tracking cookies and puts remaining third-party cookies in a separate "jar" per website so they cannot track you from site to site (Total Cookie Protection).
  • Cross-site tracking cookies: Only blocks cookies from known tracking companies, as defined by the Disconnect protection list.
  • Cookies from unvisited websites: Blocks third-party cookies from websites you have not directly visited yourself.
  • All third-party cookies: Blocks every cookie that does not originate from the domain you are currently visiting (may cause some websites to break).
  • All cookies: Blocks every single cookie, including first-party cookies required to stay logged into websites (will cause many websites to break).

2. Tracking Content

Toggling the Tracking content category stops external ads, videos, and other page elements that contain hidden code designed to monitor your browsing habits. Blocking these can also help web pages load faster. When enabled, a dropdown menu allows you to apply this setting in two ways:

  • In Private Windows only: Only blocks tracking content when you are using a Firefox Private Browsing window.
  • In all windows: Blocks tracking content during both normal and private browsing sessions.

3. Cryptominers

The Cryptominers category is a simple on-or-off toggle. When checked, Firefox blocks malicious, hidden scripts on websites that unauthorizedly use your computer's CPU and system resources to mine cryptocurrency in the background. Blocking these prevents sudden battery drain and system slowdowns.

4. Known Fingerprinters

The Known fingerprinters category is an on-or-off toggle. Digital fingerprinting is a tracking method that harvests your device's specific configuration—such as your operating system, screen resolution, installed fonts, and browser settings—to create a unique ID to track you across the web. Checking this box blocks fingerprinting scripts originating from companies explicitly identified on the Disconnect tracking protection list.

5. Suspected Fingerprinters

Toggling the Suspected fingerprinters category blocks entities that are not yet on an official blocklist, but use scripts that behave like fingerprinters according to Mozilla's heuristic detection methods. When you toggle this category on, a dropdown menu lets you choose where to apply the block:

  • In Private Windows only: Blocks suspected fingerprinting scripts exclusively in Private Browsing mode.
  • In all windows: Blocks suspected fingerprinting scripts across the entire browser, regardless of the window mode.