Shields protects your privacy as you browse by making you harder to track from site to site. Many sites include all kinds of trackers which can follow you across the Web. Shields blocks this type of content, keeping you safe and even increasing your browsing speed.

Out of the box, Shields protects you by:

• Blocking most ads and the trackers that come with them
• Throwing away cookies other than the ones from the sites you actually visit
• Making your browser harder to recognize and follow without cookies
• Upgrading you to secure connections whenever sites support them
• Blocking malicious code and malicious sites — like ones which try to use your computer to mine cryptocurrencies.

If you know what you’re doing, you can fine-tune this detection within the Shields panel. Configuring your protections to the highest level by blocking JavaScript and all cookies will keep your browser safer, but it may also break some sites. The Shields defaults give you solid protection without making it harder to browse the Web.