Anonymity New Privacy Blows from Browser Developers.

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In recent weeks, there have been unsettling news from all major browser developers, regarding advertising and user privacy: Google is allowing ad tracking through digital fingerprints, powerful ad blockers are becoming ineffective in Edge and Chrome, Mozilla is updating its licensing agreement, seemingly showing increased interest in user data. What does each of these changes mean and how can we now achieve a high level of privacy?

Google Allows Tracking Fingerprints​

Under pressure from regulators and users, the internet giant has spent several years trying to develop mechanisms that allow tracking the effectiveness of advertising and offering relevant ads to specific viewers without relying on old and unpopular tracking methods: third-party cookies and digital fingerprints. In place of these, Google proposed FLoC, Ad Topics and Privacy Sandbox, but their effectiveness seems to have been insufficient. Therefore, Google is now refusing to remove support for third-party cookies from its browser. Starting February 2025, Google's ad network (the largest in the world) will allow the collection of digital fingerprint data, including the user's IP address, during ad displays. This means that a user's browser can be identified regardless of cookie settings, incognito mode, etc - identification via digital fingerprint is quite accurate and disabling it or changing the fingerprint is difficult.

Chrome and Edge Disable Ad and Tracking Blockers​

Chrome is based on the open-source Chromium browser, which is entirely sponsored by Google. One could say that Chrome is Chromium with built-in Google services, but many other browsers, including Edge and Opera, are also based on Chromium. For many years, Chromium developers have been gradually transitioning the browser's extension ecosystem from Manifest V2 to a new version - Manifest V3. This platform has several components, but the main one is the complete list of functions and capabilities provided to extensions by the browser.

Manifest V3 has several advantages, but it deprives Chrome/Edge/Opera extensions of some useful features that are particularly important for content blockers. While popular plugins like uBlock Origin and Adblock Plus already have a version implemented on Manifest V3, only the V2 version effectively blocks ads.​

The Chrome Web Store has long stopped accepting extensions based on Manifest V2. Starting in late autumn 2024, new versions of Chrome began warning users that installed Manifest V2 extensions needed to be disabled, and then they started disabling them forcibly - still with the option for users to re-enable them, but this is clearly not going to last long. In February, similar behavior was observed in Microsoft Edge. According to Google's current plan, by June 2025, Manifest V2 extensions will be disabled even for corporate users of Chrome, after which the code responsible for supporting Manifest V2 will likely be removed from Chromium. What will developers of dozens of Chromium-based browsers do? They will have to disable support for Manifest V2, and without it, beloved extensions for ad blocking and privacy enhancement will cease to function.

Mozilla Also Targets Advertising​

The non-profit Mozilla Foundation and its subsidiary Mozilla Corporation have always been in a difficult position - their main source of income has been partnerships with search engines, primarily Google. The current leadership of Mozilla mainly comes from companies like Meta and eBay, which primarily earn from advertising. It's not surprising that recent news about Firefox development has increasingly irritated those who love this browser for its privacy features. Starting with version 128, Firefox introduced a "privacy-preserving advertising measurement system", tested in partnership with Facebook. At the end of February 2025, the user agreement for Firefox included the following notice:

"When you upload or input information through Firefox, you hereby grant us a nonexclusive, royalty-free, worldwide license to use that information to help you navigate, experience, and interact with online content as you indicate with your use of Firefox."​

Users were outraged. They interpreted this clause as permission to resell their data and other forms of tracking. Under public pressure, Mozilla changed the text and clarified that "You give Mozilla the rights necessary to operate Firefox". However, Mozilla's clarification that they merely formalized in legal terms what the browser has always done did not satisfy users. At the same time, suspicious changes occurred in other parts of the FAQ - such as the removal of points promising that Firefox would never sell data to advertisers. Despite this, no actual changes in Firefox's functionality have occurred. Therefore, for now, it's still possible to use the browser calmly - but it's essential to monitor what new features appear in each update, whether they should be disabled and whether it is time to look for a new browser.

Everything is Calm at Apple​

The vast majority of Apple users use the default Safari browser, which is based on the WebKit engine. It has its own system of extensions available through the App Store, utilizing special Apple mechanisms for content blocking in the browser. Although the most powerful extensions like uBlock Origin and NoScript are not available on Safari, quality tools for everyday ad and tracking blocking are accessible both through Safari's standard settings and via extensions like Ghostery. Apple continues to emphasize privacy as its key differentiator from other platforms, so no alarming concessions to the advertising industry have been observed in Safari. Unfortunately, for Windows users, while this browser is available for installation, it has not been updated since 2010, leaving them with a challenging choice in the next section.

The Best Browser for Privacy Protection in 2025​

Popular browsers like Chrome and Edge will be largely unsuitable for privacy enthusiasts with any extensions and settings starting in June. This also applies to most other browsers based on Chromium. As for Firefox, despite Mozilla's questionable statements, the browser still supports Manifest V2 extensions and the Firefox developers claim they will maintain this support in the foreseeable future. However, to avoid worrying about the semi-hidden activation of controversial features like "advertising measurement", users can switch from Firefox to one of the browsers based on its code that places a greater emphasis on privacy. Popular forks of Firefox include Waterfox and LibreWolf.

Waterfox is a decent compromis: no telemetry to the manufacturer, no built-in services like Pocket and it uses special releases of Firefox designed for long-term support (ESR, Extended Support Release). The downside is a small development team, so while Waterfox is not far behind Mozilla in terms of speed, it does lag slightly in releasing security updates.​

LibreWolf is focused on privacy and is marketed as "Firefox without the unnecessar". It excludes all forms of reporting to the manufacturer and telemetry, while also including the popular blocker uBlock Origin right from the start. The browser is updated promptly following Firefox releases and is available on Windows, macOS and several Linux distributions. Another popular option is the Chromium-based browser Brave, which has additional built-in privacy protection mechanisms even without blocker extensions. Its developers promise to manually maintain the functionality of several key plugins based on Manifest V2: AdGuard Adblocker, NoScript, uBlock Origin and uMatrix. However, Brave does include some ambiguous functional additions, such as a built-in crypto wallet and the AI assistant Leo. In summary, there is no perfect browser, but if we attempt to rank these options from the most privacy-focused and inconvenient to the simplest and most user-friendly (while still being privacy-conscious), the order would be: LibreWolf > Waterfox > Brave > Firefox.

Any of the browsers, except for LibreWolf, will require secure settings and a couple of extensions from the aforementioned list to maximize privacy.​

Additionally, in Brave and Firefox, users can enable the setting "Tell websites not to sell or share my data", which is part of the new Global Privacy Control initiative. There is a legislative requirement to consider this signal in some regions of the world (European Union, United Kingdom, California, Colorado, Connecticut), but this is more of an organizational measure of protection than a technical one.