Firefox starts blocking third-party cookies by default and brings its Lockbox password manager to the desktop, rebranding it as Lockwise
Mozilla today announced a slew of privacy improvements. The company has turned on Enhanced Tracking Protection, which blocks cookies from third-party trackers in Firefox, by default.
Context & Ripple Effects
With this move, Mozilla stops treating tracker-blocking as an opt-in feature and makes Enhanced Tracking Protection the default state of Firefox, while folding its mobile Lockbox password manager into the desktop browser under the new Lockwise name. The default-on switch matters because it changes what the web looks like to millions of users without requiring them to find a settings panel.
It also set the template for everything that followed: Mozilla widened the net three months later when Firefox 69 began blocking fingerprinting and cryptomining alongside tracking cookies, then escalated again with Total Cookie Protection in early 2021, which finally went default on desktop in June 2022. The 2019 announcement is the first rung of that ladder.
First-order effects
- Third-party trackers lose cookie-based access to Firefox users overnight, shrinking the retargeting and cross-site measurement data available from Firefox traffic.
- Desktop Firefox users get a built-in password manager in Lockwise, removing one of the main reasons to install a third-party password extension.
Second-order effects
- Ad-tech firms and publishers face a split web where Firefox users behave differently from Chrome users, forcing non-cookie identification methods if they want consistent measurement.
- Rival browser makers come under user-facing pressure to match Mozilla's defaults, since privacy now differentiates browsers at the feature level rather than just on speed.
Third-order effects
- If the pattern holds, the browser vendor — not legislation or consent banners — becomes the effective enforcer of tracking limits, with each default flip ratcheting the baseline tighter, as the path from cookie blocking to fingerprinting and cryptomining blocking shows.
- Bundling a password manager into the browser points toward browsers consolidating identity and credential storage, raising the stakes of whichever engine ships the defaults most users never change.
The trend: Browser makers are becoming the de facto regulators of web tracking, with default settings — not laws — defining what surveillance the open web permits.