The latest release of Mozilla’s Firefox includes a significant privacy upgrade, introducing Total Cookie Protection.

Cookies are snippets of code that websites use to identify users. They are responsible for a number of useful features, such as the ability to revisit a site and access personalized information without needing to log in again. Cookies can also be used to track users, however, including by companies that use them to track users across other websites.

In 2019, Firefox introduced Enhanced Tracking Protection (ETP), which blocks cookies from known trackers. Today’s announcement takes it a step further with Total Cookie Protection.

Our new feature, Total Cookie Protection, works by maintaining a separate “cookie jar” for each website you visit. Any time a website, or third-party content embedded in a website, deposits a cookie in your browser, that cookie is confined to the cookie jar assigned to that website, such that it is not allowed to be shared with any other website.

This is an important feature that will go a long way toward protecting user privacy and ensuring cookies aren’t abused as a way of tracking users.