Firefox Can Now Alert You Of Data Breaches To Your Accounts

Firefox 70 has just been launched for Linux, Windows, and Mac. It comes equipped with a report on Privacy Protection, a native notification service for alerting data breach, and social tracking protection.

Last October, Mozilla started to offer granular control over tracking performed by third-party organizations. The feature is called Enhanced Tracking Protection. Now, the company adds trackers for social media to the list, which will work to block trackers from social media sites like YouTube, LinkedIn, WhatsApp, Facebook, and Instagram.

This year’s updates bring some handy features for users to protect the record of their online activities. Among them is the Privacy Protections report that will provide you with a list of all the trackers the browser has blocked, divided by type. The Firefox Monitor was also integrated with Lockwise password management to notify users if their saved logins are leaked after a data breach.

Firefox is not the only browser that is putting an emphasis on providing users with more tools to protect themselves online. Earlier this month, Google’s Password Checkup extension was added right to the account controls. The newly-released Chrome 78 has officially brought the new feature to Google’s browser. The extension can be accessed at passwords.google.com. This new function is not on by default, and you will have to activate it by yourself by following chrome://flags/#password-leak-detection.

Please note that for Firefox and Chrome’s breach notification to work, your passwords must be synced to their services. Google also has another measure for users to protect themselves, which is a password generating tool to help you come up with safer passphrases in Chrome.

The additions prove that makers of common browsers are more serious when it comes to security. They are providing us with tools that can alert us of a data breach when the frequency of attempts to steal users’ data is on the rise.