In its latest release, Firefox 145, Mozilla has reinforced its stance on user privacy by significantly augmenting its defenses against digital fingerprinting. With fingerprinting becoming one of the more sophisticated browser tracking techniques—capable of identifying users based on their system configurations and behavior—this update marks a substantial win for privacy-conscious users.
Firefox 145 Targets One of the Web’s Most Stubborn Privacy Threats
Digital fingerprinting has long been a concern within the cybersecurity and privacy communities. By combining metrics such as screen resolution, hardware configurations, multilingual font settings, installed plugins, and other browser-specific behaviors, malicious actors can create a nearly unique identifier for each user—a device fingerprint.
Firefox 145 counters these advanced tracking tactics by enhancing its component-agnostic anti-fingerprinting techniques, further narrowing the observable differences among users of the browser.
How Digital Fingerprinting Works and Why It Is Hard to Block
Unlike traditional tracking cookies, which store data locally and can be deleted, fingerprinting extracts passive information from a user’s system without storing anything in the browser. The concept relies on the idea that even seemingly generic information about a browser or device—screen size, GPU model, timezone, or system fonts—can form a unique signature when combined.
Since fingerprinting occurs via scripts running in the browser, it is notoriously difficult to prevent. Most anti-tracking tools are only partially effective, as they rely on blocking or obfuscating subsets of possible data points.
“Fingerprinting is one of the most persistent and insidious privacy threats on the modern internet,” said a Mozilla engineer involved in the project. “With Firefox 145, we’re closing some common gaps that have historically enabled persistent tracking even in hardened environments.”
What’s New in Firefox 145’s Anti-Fingerprinting Approach
The newest Firefox release improves protections under its existing Enhanced Tracking Protection (ETP) framework, primarily affecting users who have opted into the “Strict” privacy mode or who are using Firefox in hardened configurations such as in private browsing or via the Tor Browser integration.
Key fingerprinting mitigations included in Firefox 145:
- Further uniformity in reported screen resolution and viewport dimensions across devices
- Suppression of internal APIs used to query system fonts and installed plugins
- Timer resolution reduction to inhibit precise micro-timing attacks
- Disabling canvas readouts unless initiated through user gestures
- Spoofing or randomizing less-critical browser headers and environment variables
Importantly, these new measures cause negligible performance or usability trade-offs, which Mozilla notes as a priority in balancing security with user experience.
Impact on Users and the Broader Privacy Ecosystem
For individual users, this upgrade means greater resilience against cross-site tracking even when third-party cookies are blocked or deleted. While no anti-fingerprinting technique can guarantee total anonymity—especially when used alone—Firefox 145 makes it significantly harder for tracking networks to identify a user consistently or with high confidence.
For organizations focused on privacy compliance or secure browser environments—such as privacy-first companies, journalists, and human rights NGOs—these enhancements are particularly valuable. They broaden the attack surface that tracking scripts must contend with, thereby reducing the effectiveness of fingerprint-based reidentification.
Mozilla’s move also sets a high bar in the browser security space. Competing browsers such as Chrome and Edge have historically taken more conservative approaches to anti-fingerprinting, largely due to balancing concerns with ad-tech partnerships or performance monitoring.
“This release puts Firefox even further ahead in the browser privacy race,” remarked a prominent browser security analyst on a community forum. “Mozilla continues to lead by example in resisting invisible surveillance tactics.”
A Broader Privacy Strategy in the Making
Firefox 145 is more than a standalone update—it’s part of Mozilla’s broader strategy to re-enable user agency, transparency, and consent on the modern internet. By gradually phasing out passive tracking mechanisms, Mozilla is not just safeguarding its users but also influencing web standards in a privacy-centric direction.
Looking ahead, Mozilla is expected to roll out even more advanced cloaking and sandboxing strategies for behaviors tied to WebGL and WebRTC—both known fingerprinting vectors. These future changes will likely build upon Firefox 145’s infrastructure to offer consistent, systemic responses to emerging fingerprinting methods.
As web trackers grow more sophisticated—and regulation around data privacy evolves—browsers like Firefox will play an increasingly central role in the user’s security posture.
Security professionals and privacy architects should consider recommending Firefox 145 for environments where heightened anonymity and data protection are required. With fingerprinting defenses now baked deeply into core browser logic, Firefox continues to serve not only as a functional tool but as an active shield against today’s most subtle tracking threats.
