Turn On Firefox’s Built-In Protection
Open Firefox on your computer. Click the menu button in the top-right corner, then choose Settings. From there, select Privacy & Security.
You’ll see Enhanced Tracking Protection near the top. Set it to Strict if you want stronger blocking. Standard is less aggressive and usually causes fewer website problems, but Strict is the setting I’d pick if ads and tracking are driving you crazy.
What Strict Mode Changes
Strict mode blocks more tracking content. It also stops some scripts and cookies that follow you across websites. That doesn’t mean every ad disappears. Firefox isn’t promising a completely ad-free internet here.
Still, pages often feel cleaner because a lot of the tracking junk never gets a chance to load.
• Strict mode is the stronger choice if privacy matters more to you than having every website behave perfectly.
• Some sites may complain about blocked content, which is usually easy to fix for that one website.
• No extension required for the first layer of protection.
Check the Protection Settings
Firefox gives you another useful option. Open a website and look at the shield icon beside the address bar. Click it.
You’ll see information about what Firefox has blocked on that page. This is handy because you can actually see the protection doing something instead of simply hoping it works.
And if a website breaks after you enable Strict mode, you don’t have to abandon the setting completely. You can turn protection off for that specific site. Personally, I’d rather do that than weaken privacy settings across the whole browser because one website refuses to cooperate.