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Ads have become a nuisance on the web, forcing both users and even browser makers to take heavy-handed solutions to fix that problem. More often than not, these involve blocking ads and third-party tracking cookies that, unfortunately, also deprive legit sites of a source of income. While Google is working on making well-behaved ads more trustworthy, Firefox maker Mozilla is taking a different approach and has partnered with Scroll to offer an ad-free experience but at a small price.

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Today in the USA, Mozilla updated Firefox for security and privacy purposes. They did this with DNS over HTTPS (DoH), a system which encrypts the interactions between computers and servers when they connect via the Internet. Because of the way insecure DNS works, "lookups" of servers done by your computer when connected to the internet are vulnerable to malicious agents. DoH stops all that business.

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Firefox Private Network, the company's subscription VPN service that is still stuck in private beta, has been updated with support for its own Android app. This expands the software support from Windows 10 and ChromeOS, though apps still aren't available for macOS, iOS, or Linux. The service isn't free, but it is quite inexpensive...assuming you can get an invite to sign up for the service, that is.

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Mozilla, the non-profit organization behind Firefox, seems to always be reinventing itself. It has tried numerous times to create new revenue sources, changed a classic logo, and even introduce paid features and services. It has also recently reinvented its browser for Android, almost throwing away many of the conventions and features that users have become accustomed to over the years. Perhaps unsurprisingly, that also includes add-ons of which only a handful will work with the new Android version of the browser when it launches.

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Given the number of things they do on the Web and the number of news regarding hacks and scams, you'd think people would be more careful about their online activities. They would if not for the sometimes complicated process of ensuring that no one is watching you. That's why browser makers are bending over backward to make it easier for their users to protect their privacy, sometimes just by flicking a switch. For Mozilla, that goes beyond more powerful Do Not Track features in firefox and right into VPN territory, which is what its Firefox Private Network or FPN wants to offer to the next batch of beta testers.

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Earlier this year, Mozilla revealed that it will be tackling the issue of annoying notification permission prompts that appear on many websites as soon as they load. In an update on the matter published on Monday, Mozilla detailed the results of its experiment on how best to deal with these notifications and explained how it will change its browser's way of handling them starting with a future version of the software.

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Mozilla has pushed out the latest Firefox browser update, adding a new Privacy Protections report related to the Enhanced Tracking Protection feature introduced earlier this year. As well, the browser is getting a couple of new security tools, the most notable being a new password generator that works with the software's Lockwise, a feature that safely stores passwords.

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Earlier this year, Mozilla formally retired its Test Pilot program and graduated some of those tests into features for the Firefox browser. At that time, it seemed that Mozilla had learned all that it could from the program. Surprisingly, the nonprofit organization has suddenly come out with a new test pilot that ties into Mozilla's thrust in protecting users' privacy.

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Mozilla previously put third-party and cross-site tracking on notice and now it is finally flipping the switch. Starting with today's release, Firefox will have its Enhanced Tracking Protection turned on by default. Additionally, it will also be blocking cryptominers by default so that hackers won't be able to make money off your CPU cycles and battery life. Ironically, it won't yet do the same for sites that try to track your computer based on certain "fingerprints".

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Firefox is one of the biggest and most popular web browsers around, second or equal to Google Chrome and, for Apple users, Safari. What few people probably know is that the Mozilla Foundation that owns and develops the browsers, among other things, is a non-profit organization that doesn't profit from the massive use of Firefox. As such, it has always been looking for revenue sources, some of which ended up in failure. Its latest attempt will probably be just as controversial, practically asking users how much they will be willing to pay for an ad-free Internet experience and a bit more.

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Despite still being one of the big names in the web browser market, Firefox has been struggling to increase its share on mobile, especially on Android. Part of that is Google’s strategy of having Chrome installed on every certified device, a strategy that has been legally questioned in Europe. The other part of that is the perceived stagnation of the mobile app and its slower performance, which Mozilla is addressing by eventually gutting out Firefox for Android and replacing it with Fenix, available now as Firefox Preview on Android.

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Given how regularly browser makers like Google and Mozilla release new versions of their software, a sudden new release is almost surprising. Firefox 67.0.3, however, is no simple minor release. Users are urged to make sure they're running this latest version of the browser because while it seems to fix just one thing, it is a critical security fix that could cause users headaches or maybe even lost cryptocurrencies.

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