Mozilla Firefox 90 introduces the next version of SmartBlock. The browser’s tracker blocking mechanism is built into its private browsing and strict mode. Now it has been improved to prevent the button to log in to the website with a Facebook account from being broken.
The news was announced on Tuesday. SmartBlock was first launched with Firefox 87 in March. It is mainly used to intelligently repair web pages damaged by tracking protection measures without compromising user privacy.
SmartBlock does this by providing local stand-ins for blocked third-party tracking scripts. These stand-in scripts behave the same as the original scripts, which are sufficient to ensure the normal operation of the website and allow broken websites that rely on the original script to function in good condition load.
But sometimes, this feature can destroy Facebook’s login button. In a new blog post, Mozilla’s Tom Wisniewski and Arthur Edelstein explain why this happens with an example of trying to log in to Etsy.
Before Firefox 90, if you use a private browsing window when you click the “Continue to Facebook” button to log in, the Login will not be possible because the required third-party Facebook script has been blocked by Firefox.
However, with Firefox 90 and SmartBlock 2.0, Facebook’s login button can be reused, and SmartBlock 2.0 can still prevent cross-site tracking. This is because the Facebook scripts were initially blocked, but in the new version, when you click the Continue to Facebook button to log in, SmartBlock will react and quickly unblock the Facebook login script to make the login go smoothly. Mozilla Firefox 90 is now available for download on Mozilla’s FTP.
