Dive Brief:

• Focus by Firefox is a content blocker for iOS 9 from Mozilla that goes beyond blocking ads and also blocks content containing trackers.
• The content blocking app is available in the Apple App Store and was made possible by the ad blocking capability that rolled out with the iOS 9 release.
• Because Focus by Firefox is designed to block trackers and not ads, ads that don’t include tracking elements are displayed normally.

Dive Insight:

Mozilla is the latest organization to take advantage of iOS 9’s ad blocking capability, but with a twist. Focus by Firefox is a “content blocker” that blocks any content with tracking capability. This means ads without any trackers are displayed, but otherwise benign mobile content that does include trackers is blocked.

Firefox’s Vice President of Product Nick Nguyen told Venture Beat, “This is our first effort. Just like everything we build, we’re trying to make the Internet better, long-term.” 

Nguyen added that Focus is different from many of the other ad blocking options in the Apple App Store because it is free, and is transparent about what it can do. It also offers users control over what the app blocks from ad, social and analytics trackers. In addition, the app has an “other trackers” option that includes potential mobile website crippling videos, photos and embeddable content that tracks users.

Focus by Firefox will be open sourced and based on a blocking list from Disconnect, the same as Firefox’s Private Browsing Mode on Windows, Mac, Linux and Android. Focus will only work on the Safari browser and not on the iOS version of Firefox.