Data is the lifeblood of any product, and Firefox is no exception. Making the best browser possible requires understanding how users use Firefox and understanding the nature of the web itself, something Matt Grimes has been talking about in his overviews of some data collection approaches at Mozilla.

For Mozilla, this is a particular challenge. We believe in protecting our user’s privacy, and that extends to collecting data from them. That is why, when we want to collect sensitive data, we ask users to opt in. This is a bit of an annoyance; we don’t want to regularly be popping up messages asking users if they’d like to join a study. It would be nice to find a balance that gives users control without pestering them.

Firefox Pioneer (named after the deep-space probe) is an effort to find that balance. Firefox users will be invited to join the Pioneer program. Becoming a Pioneer tells us “I’m willing to contribute sensitive data to help make Firefox better.” Users will opt in once and then be included in future studies going forward. Some of these studies will be passive and simply listen. Others may alter the behavior of your browser a little bit to see if it improves how you browse the web. Others may occasionally ask a question to help us understand how you’re interacting with a page.

Of course, Pioneers will be able to opt out of individual studies and Mozilla will be up front about what information is being collected at any given time so that Pioneers are able to make an informed choice. We’ve also put in place a number of other limits to make sure our Pioneers are protected:

Data about individuals will not be shared publicly or sold. Raw data will only be available to a small number of researchers, and those researchers will only have access to studies relevant to their work. Aggregate information will only be disclosed in ways that minimize risk to user privacy.

Proposed studies are reviewed by a team dedicated to ensuring user privacy and will not proceed without their approval.

Users are given a random ID unique to Pioneer. It will not be correlated with any other user information and will be the only identifier that links your data on our servers.

Pioneer will not attempt to collect cookies, account names, passwords, email addresses, or POST form values. No probe will look at what happens in Private Browsing windows.

Joining Pioneer is a big ask of our community! We recognize that a lot of people won’t be comfortable sharing their browser activity, even anonymously. But, if you’re looking for an easy way to help contribute to the future of Firefox and the web, Pioneer is great. You opt-in, browse the internet as you always would, and that’ll provide information to help us build a better product.

Visit the Firefox Pioneer Add-on page to learn more about how to opt into Pioneer today.