A Mozilla Firefox sticker

Mozilla has released a new version of Firefox that lets you strike a better balance between maintaining privacy and breaking websites.

Firefox 65 updates its controls for how the web browser manages content like tracker software and cookies -- small text files a website can store on your computer that are handy for things like remembering what's in your e-commerce shopping cart, but also for letting advertisers record what you're doing online.

Firefox now has three options to fine-tune its privacy setting: standard, strict and custom. Standard blocks tracking but only in private tabs, though later it'll block third-party trackers in ordinary websites, too. Strict blocks tracking in all windows, but it may break some websites. Custom lets you pick specific controls for blocking cookies and trackers.

You get to the controls by clicking the "i" icon in a website's address bar. That'll also let you see just what trackers are there on a particular website.

Firefox 65 gets new privacy controls: standard, strict and custom.

The moves are part of a crackdown among browser makers trying to stick up for users after years of increasingly intrusive behavior by advertisers and website publishers. Privacy protection is a growing concern, though, as problems like data breaches and Facebook's Cambridge Analytica scandal reveal just how little control we have over our personal data.

Mozilla has long pushed for better online privacy, but in some ways it's scrambling to catch up to rivals. Apple's Safari already blocks third-party cookies by default, and Brave, from the startup led by Mozilla co-founder Brendan Eich, goes even farther.

More than a year ago, Mozilla released a major overhaul of its browser called Firefox Quantum, designed to dramatically speed up browsing. So far, though, there's not much evidence the new version has dented the dominance of Google's Chrome, now 10 years old and accounting for 62 percent of browser usage, according to analytics firm StatCounter.

Other features in Firefox 65 include:

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