Third-party content blockers such as Crystal can block many of these same third-party trackers and advertisers, but only when using Safari.Īpple did not immediately respond to Motherboard's request for comment. Nick Nguyen, VP of Firefox, told Motherboard in an emailed statement that Apple's developer guidelines 'do not allow us to incorporate their Content Blocking API into Private Browsing on Firefox for iOS.' Nguyen did add, however, that Mozilla would 'love' to incorporate this technology into Firefox if permitted. Whether or not blocking ads is healthy for online publishers is a separate matter, but there's no denying the performance benefits that come with blocking third-party trackers and advertisers. What Are Firefox Extensions (Also Called Firefox Add-Ons) Firefox extensions, previously known as Firefox Add-ons, are tiny programs that function within the web browser to extend its functionality. The general idea, Mozilla says, is to enhance users' privacy by ensuring their data and surfing habits aren't used to create 'profiles about you across multiple sites.' In practice this also means that users won't see many online ads, as seen below: Tracking Protection, which debuted on the desktop beta version of Firefox in September, lets users block third-party advertising and tracking servers from following them around the internet. Firefox, Mozilla's popular open source web browser, is now available for iOS for the first time ever, but thanks to Apple's developer guidelines it's missing one feature killer feature from its desktop counterpart that would have truly set it apart from the likes of Safari and Google Chrome.

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