Technology company Mozilla on Tuesday launched an extension for its Firefox browser, which it says can “make it harder” for Facebook to track users’ activity. The extension, “Facebook Container”, will hide users’ Facebook identity from other websites they visit.
Users who install the extension will be able to access Facebook on a separate blue “container window or tab”. External websites will open in the regular browser, outside the container, while clicking on share buttons on websites outside Facebook will bring the user back to the container window. Installing the extension means the social media website will not be able to use users’ web activity to target advertising, according to Tech Crunch.
However, users who use their Facebook accounts to log in, like posts or comment on external websites will not be able to do so if they install the Facebook Container extension. “This prevents Facebook from associating information about your activity on websites outside of Facebook to your Facebook identity,” Mozilla said. “So it may look different than what you are used to seeing.”
Mozilla’s extension for its popular web browser comes amid calls for people to delete Facebook after it emerged that an analytics company had used data of more than five crore Facebook users to allegedly influence elections in the United States. Facebook issued full-page advertisements in several British and American newspapers on Sunday to apologise for the data breach scandal. Chief Executive Officer Mark Zuckerberg also admitted to mistakes that led to the breach.
“Rather than stop using a service you find valuable and miss out on those adorable photos of your nephew, we think you should have tools to limit what data others can collect about you,” Mozilla said.
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