How does enabling Tracking Protection in Firefox compare to installing the Disconnect add-on? I'm enabling Tracking Protection through about:config by setting privacy.trackingprotection.enabled to true, so Tracking Protection is always enabled, not just in Private Browsing as is the default. The Firefox documentation suggests the "Tracking Protection feature uses a list provided by Disconnect to identify and block trackers". Does this mean the two are functionally equivalent?
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Websites do not have to honor your tracking preference. The header in this information is not honored. Disconnect gives you the ability to block their individual cookies I would image, based on my limited researched, due to the mozilla add-on website not working in my current location.– RamhoundCommented Jan 5, 2017 at 16:42
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I see, so Tracking Protection is basically passive, while Disconnect actively blocks cookies?– user126350Commented Jan 5, 2017 at 17:19
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Tracking Protection, will block tracking cookies, when the website actually honors that header.– RamhoundCommented Jan 5, 2017 at 22:34
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1@Ramhound: That's incorrect. Firefox's tracking protection is a different feature than "do not track" header.– user198350Commented Jan 6, 2017 at 10:34
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1 Answer
If both Disconnect and Firefox's tracking protection use identical list the functionality is equivalent. The Disconnect addon has some extra features such as "visualizing" connections on pages and whitelisting websites.
Disconnect's "basic tracking list" is available online, but Firefox doesn't seem to allow inspecting its block lists (options > privacy > tracking > change block list) and hence there's no easy way to confirm if the exact same domains are used.
UPDATE: The addon seems to store the blocked domains in the services.json file (version 5.19.3) in \data\. You can download the .xpi file from the Mozilla addons page ("save link as") and open with 7-Zip.
answered Jan 6, 2017 at 10:46
