Some websites track our online behavior to give us customized online experiences. If we're not careful, this can also put us at risk of having our information accessed by third parties without our knowledge.

You don’t have to sacrifice your privacy every time you go online. Here are some tips to help you control what information is saved, tracked or shared.

Private Browsing: Don't save a record of your online behavior

When sharing a computer with others, follow these tips to keep your information, such as browsing history and logins, private:

• Use Private Browsing mode to prevent your history, site preferences or logins from being saved and accessed by others. Private Browsing also blocks cookies, preventing fraudsters and snoops from tracking your behavior.

• If you forget to use Private Browsing mode on a shared computer, don't worry. You can still use the Forget button to quickly delete your recent information without affecting the rest.

Do Not Track: Tell websites you do not want to be tracked

The Do Not Track feature tells websites - and their networks - that you don’t want your browsing behavior monitored and shared. Mozilla is helping more and more companies implement Do Not Track.

Do Not Track is available in Firefox and Firefox for Android, as well as in Firefox OS.

Tracking Protection: Prevent websites from tracking you

Websites are not required to respect Do Not Track requests. Firefox has an experimental Tracking Protection feature that actively prevents tracking, by using a blocklist of domains and websites that are known to track users.

Tracking Protection is available in Firefox and Firefox for Android.

Lightbeam: Know who's watching you

When you visit a website, do you really know how many companies you are sharing your information with?

Lightbeam is a Mozilla add-on that tells you how many companies you’ve connected with as you browse the Web. This knowledge helps you make informed decisions when you go online.

Visit the Lightbeam page to install the add-on and shine a light on who’s tracking you.

More privacy add-ons

Your choices don't end here. Firefox has thousands of available add-ons to protect your privacy! Choose from add-ons that block advertising and trackers to ones that prevent search engines from modifying your search results.

See the Privacy Add-on collection.