Firefox 57 protects users from snooping applications

As planned to be released on November 14, Firefox 57 will bring a new security method to prevent accessibility apps (Accessibility Apps) from accessing browser data.

Accessibility is the term used to design products for people with disabilities. Features of this type in Firefox allow specialized applications to connect to the browser and user data.

For example, reading screens use this support feature of Firefox to help read content from active web pages, menus, browsing history, privacy settings .

A new entry is added to the Firefox dashboard

Engineers at Mozilla say they have now found applications that take advantage of Firefox's feature to access and collect user data on Firefox.

Add a method to protect personal data of users

'We've discovered a long list of third-party Windows applications that use the ability to snoop on user activity,' said Jim Mathies, Software Development Manager at Mozilla. 'We will eliminate this by creating better communication when this feature is active.' 'A new item in Privacy settings setting and a11y active status display brings 1 button to turn off the feature. go'.

The new section lists a11y applications that connect to Firefox

In addition, Mozilla engineers added a new section on the about: support page called Accessibility. If this feature is enabled, this item will list the current applications that are using that feature.

This allows users to detect bad apps, use this feature to spy on users and collect data.

Accessibility item is added to about: support page

Firefox 57 is expected to be a breakthrough. It will be the first Firefox version to support the new WebExtensions add-on system, meaning that the old Firefox add-ons built on the XML-based Add-Ons API will no longer work.

You can try most of the changes on Firefox 57, including how to protect Accessibility via Firefox Nightly.