Yesterday, Mozilla announced three new experimental features via its Test Pilot program, one of which will have a serious impact on the privacy of Firefox users if approved.
The Test Pilot program is available as a Firefox add-on that allows users to activate experimental features inside their Firefox stable branch. This is how Mozilla runs tests for upcoming features and how it gathers user feedback and real-world telemetry data.
The latest addition to this program is an option that allows users to activate a privacy-focused feature called Tracking Protection.
Right now, this feature is only available in Firefox’s Private Browsing mode and works by blocking known sources of tracking scripts, such as ad networks.
Mozilla is using the Test Pilot program to test and see how Tracking Protection would work if the option becomes available for all Firefox tabs, not just those opened in Private Browsing.
“This experiment will help us understand where Tracking Protection breaks the web so that we can improve it for all Firefox users,” said Nick Nguyen, Vice President of Firefox Product for Mozilla.
This is why, besides the Tracking Protection button that activates and deactivates the feature, Mozilla also included a feedback module (pictured below), which users can use to let Firefox devs know where the Tracking Protection breaks a page’s content.
Out of the seven features available in the Firefox Test Pilot program, this one has the highest chances of being approved, if tests don’t expose major bugs.