The first time we had contact with Tracking Prevention was earlier this year at the Build Developer Conference. There, Microsoft presented the Tracking Prevention feature. After this conference, the developers from Microsoft had the chance to test this feature in the Insider Preview builds for Chromium Edge.
After the first tests took place, the users stated they have noticed that Tracking Prevention was disabled, so they needed to enable it manually. Now, the first testing phase is over, and it was a success. And the good news is Microsoft listened to the users that tested it. Now, Tracking Prevention is enabled by default, both in the Edge Canary and the Dev builds.
Mozilla Firefox is another browser that has this kind of feature. But Tracking Prevention feature from Microsoft differs. While Mozilla’s Tracking Protection is an ad-blocker, Microsoft’s Tracking Prevention has the power of a complete full-fledged ad-blocker in Microsoft Edge.
Based on your preferences, you can choose one of the three available modes of Tracking Prevention: Basic, Balanced, and Strict.
Chromium Edge To Launch With ‘Tracking Prevention’ Enabled By Default
With the Basic mode of this feature, the browser will block malicious advertisements but will allow the websites to show the relevant ones.
If you choose the Balanced Mode in Tracking Prevention, Microsoft Edge will reduce the appearance of the ads, but also will block the third-party and suspicious trackers.
With the Strict mode, the browser will instantly block most of the third-party trackers. Anyhow, we must note Tracking Prevention is not a content blocker. For example, it doesn’t block the ads on YouTube. Microsoft specified this feature is made only to protect websites from the trackers.
With the feature enabled, you will have a smaller number of targeted ads by blocking the third-party cookies. There is a list of trackers used by the browser to identify and block them. Tracking Prevention is by default on Balance mode, but you can change that according to your preferences.
Dorothy has been a journalist for ten years and has been working with the Tech News Watch staff since the beginning of the news site. Her main contribution to Tech News Watch are mobile, IT and science news, with a focus on software updates and great outer space discoveries.