Tag: firefox

Mozilla plans to release a new major update for its open source web browser tomorrow. Firefox 157 is not another light release that makes changes mostly under the hood, as it introduces the Project Nova design refresh to the community.

When you launch it, you will see bits of the new design right away, even if you run a custom theme in Firefox. The main reason for that is that Nova changes the structure of the browser interface to a degree. It adds rounder tabs, software pop-over-menus and a redesigned address bar.

If the theme is set to default, you may notice a new color palette for it, which may not be to everyone’s liking. You can change it in the settings of the browser under appearance. I went there and switched the Ash theme on immediately to get a less-colorful scheme.

Advanced Firefox users who use userChrome.css to modify the browser may run into problems, as CSS code may need to be updated to play along nicely with the new design and layout of the open source browser.

Nova is the first significant update of Firefox since Proton launched back in 2021. Veteran users of the browser may also remember the Photon and Australis changes of 2017 and 2014.

There is also a new compact option for the interface, which I enabled immediately. You find it by loading about:preferences#appearance and switching to Compact under Window density there.

How to disable Nova in Firefox: There is a workaround to disable Nova for now. All you have to do is open about:config in the address bar, find browser.nova.enabled and set it to False. This disables the redesign. It will be a temporary option though, as Mozilla will likely remove the flag eventually. Another option is to use Firefox ESR for the time being, as it won’t get the update until it gets its next major version update in 2027.

What else is new?

If you look past the redesigned interface, you will find a few new features and many bug fixes. The highlight is support for hardware-accelerated AV1 WebRTC video calls decoding which may improve the performance on supported devices.

There is a new warning for connections that may not be private when opening the shield icon of a site as well.

Firefox Suggest’s rollout continues with multiple European countries now supported. The feature displays information in the browser’s address bar, which you can disable in the settings of the browser in the Search category.

As far as other changes are concerned; Amazon Search is removed, but still available in the search preferences. The updated sidebar is now available for everyone and you can still disable it by setting sidebar.revamp to False, but this will only remain an option until the end of 2027. YouTube users, who change the playback speed constantly may notice performance improvements while playing videos in the browser.

Mozilla released a new version of its open source Firefox web browser a moment ago. Firefox 154.0 is the latest stable version. Also released are Firefox 153.1 ESR, Firefox 140.14 ESR (reaching end of support in September) and Firefox 115.39.0 ESR (for old operating systems).

The new stable version comes with several new features and improvements to existing features. The usual bug fixes and security updates are also included.

As far as new features are concerned, there are several important ones. First, the open source browser’s local network access protection includes WebSocket connections now. Means, when a remote website asks for permission to use WebSocket, Firefox will display a permission prompt first. The user needs to allow this explicitly so that the website can open a WebSocket.

There is also a change to how Firefox handles sites and cookies for some sites. The release gives users more control, as it is now possible to exempt sites from the browser’s cookie and site data cleaner without exempting it from tracking protection and other cookie restrictions at the same time.

The local translations feature got two new options. It supports translations in iframes now and Firefox’s full-page translations feature now runs on all page loads, which Mozilla says improves the experience for offering translations.

Second, the browser’s backup feature for profiles is now also available on macOS, meaning that all three desktop operating systems are covered. IT is a built-in feature to create a backup of a Firefox profile to make restores easier. Should not bother long-time Firefox users who back up the profiles manually using external means, but may help users who never bothered or knew about this option in the first place.

Lastly, there is a change to hard reloading a website using Shift and clicking on the refresh button. This will now also clear and update favicons, the little icons you see in front of the site address on the main Firefox toolbar.

Firefox users who watch videos in the browser benefit from seeking improvements. Mozilla claims that this is much faster now. I don’t use Firefox for that, but if you do, feel free to share your experience in the comments below.

You may also notice that Firefox View is no longer visible by default. Mozilla is hiding it by default for new profiles and for profiles where it has not been used in a while. It is still accessible via List all tabs > View all tabs, and can also be added back using the customize menu on the new tab page.

As far as security fixes are concerned, there are quite a few. The aggregate rating is high and Mozilla makes no mentions of exploits in the wild. Still, good idea to update asap.

While companies like Google and Microsoft have dropped support for classic MV2 extensions already or are about to end support, some developers announced plans to continue supporting some or even all classic extensions.

Of all the major browsers, it is only Firefox that continues to support MV2 extensions. Mozilla has just reiterated that this is the case stating “Firefox support for uBlock Origin is not going anywhere.” on X.

Firefox support for uBlock Origin is not going anywhere. https://t.co/rhsBmU2QQG

— Firefox 🔥 (@firefox) August 10, 2026

As far as Chromium-based browsers are concerned, Brave plans to continue support for some extensions only, including uBlock Origin. Opera Software also claims to continue supporting MV2 extensions.

There are a few lesser known browsers, Thorium and Supermium, which pledged to continue their support for all MV2 extensions.

The background story

Google announced plans to switch Chromium, the open source part of Google Chrome and most browsers, to a new rules system. Called Manifest V3, or MV3, it was designed to replace the classic extensions system.

Google would not be Google if it would not have tried to pull a stunt on the browsing community by removing capabilities and replacing them half-heartedly. The outcry was big enough for Google to make some concessions, but the result was still a new system that lacked some of the capabilities of the old.

One of the types of extensions hit hardest by the changes were content blockers; exactly the extensions that threatened Google’s main source of revenue.

For the longest of times, Firefox users had to rely on extensions or other means to integrate content blocking in the open source browser. Extensions like NoScript or uBlock Origin provided Firefox users with excellent blocking capabilities.

However, only a fraction of all users of the browser installed these extensions. Mozilla’s argument that Firefox was a privacy-focused browser always fell a bit short because of it.

This could change soon though. After testing an ad-blocker in desktop Firefox earlier this year, Mozilla has integrated the option to block ads in Firefox Beta for iOS.

If you have installed Firefox 153.2 for iOS, you may notice a new option to “block ads” in the settings under browsing after enabling the “Ad Blocker” feature flag in the browser.

The setting appears to be enabled by default, but it is unclear whether that is only for the beta or if the final stable release will also have the content blocker enabled by default — or get it at all.

According to user tests, the implementation lacks user interface visibility, just like the test implementation in desktop Firefox. It remains to be seen where this will lead to. Will Firefox get a native content blocker just like Brave and some other Chromium-based browsers like Opera or Vivaldi? It is difficult to tell right now, but since it is in Beta, it seems possible that the next major Firefox for iOS release will include a built-in content blocker.

What is your take on this? Rely on native content blockers or extensions? Let us know in the comments below.

Mozilla released a new stable version of its Firefox web browser a moment ago. Firefox 153.0.1 is a point update for the open source browser that is a bug-fix release for the most part. Good news from the security front: there are no security issues that needed fixing in the release.

Note: There is one unresolved issue that may affect Firefox users on Windows. Windows users who experience a crash after installing the update may need to download Firefox manually from Mozilla’s website to install it over the current broken installation. You could also wait with the installation of this update until the issue is resolved for good.

Probably the biggest fixes are several crashes that users of older versions of the browser may have experienced:

• Fixed a startup crash on Windows that could occur after updating. It could happen when “some of the application’s internal files could not be loaded”. The updated Firefox should start properly now, but Mozilla notes, that some “parts of the interface” may not display correctly as a consequence.
• Fixed a crash that could occur when loading a frame using a javascript: address.
• Fixed a crash that could happen while typing in editable areas of a webpage.

Other than that, there is a fix for audio playing silently on some sites after pausing and resuming playback, and a fix for the New Tab page flashing “a few seconds after the page loaded” on systems with custom wallpapers.

Here is the list of the remaining fixes in the release:

• Search engines that are already installed are not labeled as “New” anymore.
• Pointer lock is improved, which is used by games and other web content to contain the pointer in the browser window.
• Fixed that View Page Source would not load blob: documents. Also fixed a time-out issue on documents that inherit their origin.
• Fixed an issue with the Developer Tool’s Inspector Rules view. Pseudo-elements could only be expanded once per selected element.

The update to Firefox 153.0.1 is available already. It should be installed automatically on most systems, but you can speed it up by selecting Help > About Firefox in the main menu.

Mozilla released Firefox 153.0 to the public yesterday. The new version of the open source browser comes with a good range of new features and changes, including some that are important for privacy and security.

The list of changes is long, but there are several standout features in changes. For one, Mozilla integrated the decade-old Containers feature of the browser directly into Firefox as an out-of-the-box feature.

Containers allow you to separate websites and data. The main idea is to contain data within containers, which means that anything that runs outside can’t access the container data. Whether it is a coincidence that Mozilla is making the feature more visible after Brave introduced it recently is unclear, but it could give Containers a much needed boost.

There are various methods to open sites in Containers. You can right-click on any open tab and select the “Open in new Container tab” option, or right-click on the new-tab-button instead.

Firefox ships with the usual four default containers personal, work, banking, and shopping, which you can edit. You can also add new containers or enable “Select a container for each new tab” to automatically open the container picker when opening a new tab.

The Multi-Account Container add-on is still useful, as it extends the functionality. You can use it to force-launch specific sites in a container and use other exclusive features.

As far as security and privacy are concerned, there are three additional changes that are noteworthy:

• Extensions do not gain access to local files by default anymore. You can still grant them permission using the new “Access local files on your computer” permission.
• Firefox now requires websites to request permission before connecting to devices on local networks, or to apps and services on a device.
• Veteran Firefox users may remember the cookieBehavior preference. The values 3 (Allows third-party cookies only if the eTLD+1 already has at least one cookie set in a first-party context) and 4 (Blocks cookies from domains classified as trackers.) are being removed. They are hidden in Firefox 153 and may be removed as early as Firefox 155. Mozilla replaces them with what it says modern values. Link

Here are the remaining important changes and new features in Firefox 153:

• HDR video playback is coming to Windows on devices that support it. Make sure that HDR video streaming is enabled under Settings > Display.
• Share > Generate QR Code is a new option to share pages.
• PDF Editor can now merge multiple PDFs by dragging them into the PDF sidebar and add new pages to PDFs.
• Type “pick color” in the address bar to quickly copy a color code from the active page.
• On Apple devices, Firefox supports Globe-F now.
• Local permissions are not highlighted in red in the address bar.
• You can launch Firefox labs now by typing labs in the address bar.

Last but not least, Mozilla patched several security issues in Firefox. The aggregate rating is high and there is no mention of exploits in the wild.

Google announced plans some time ago to move Chromium to a 2-week release cycle to bring features quicker to users. While that does not mean that there will be more Chrome releases, it means that the main version of the browser increases twice as fast.

Mozilla announced on the official Dev Platform group that it will move Firefox development to a 2-week release cycle as well. However, Mozilla notes that this will be an experimental shift, one that it plans to monitor closely to find out if it is beneficial.

Starting with Firefox 155, which Mozilla plans to release on September 1, 2026 and not on September 15, 2026 anymore, Firefox will see a version bump every two weeks.

We are planning to move Firefox Desktop and Android from a 4-week release cadence to a 2-week release cadence starting in September 2026.

This will be an experiment. The goal is to give work that is ready to ship more frequent opportunities to reach users, while making the release process more predictable and reducing pressure on uplifts.

This does not mean that all work needs to ship twice as fast. Work that is not ready should not be rushed, and features can still take the time they need to bake.

Mozilla says that features shouldn’t and won’t get rushed when the change hits. If a feature is not ready, it should not be included in a release just like before.

For users, the main change is that Mozilla may bring some features earlier to Firefox users and that the version of the browser increases twice as fast. Firefox ESR users won’t see a change, as that version is not affected by the change.

Mozilla released Firefox 152 Stable a moment ago. The new version of the open source web browser includes security fixes as well as new features and changes. The two extended support versions, Firefox 140.12 ESR and 115.37.0 ESR for legacy systems have also been updated.

The big visual feature of Firefox 152 is the new Settings page. The goal of the redesign was to streamline the page, improve grouping and navigation. Mozilla says the change is visual only, meaning that user settings were not changed and that all settings remain available.

One effect that you may notice immediately is that the average number of preferences per page has been reduced. Means, less scrolling. You can still use the built-in search to find a preference quickly.

Here is an overview of other important features in the release:

• Firefox supports JPEG XL now. The image format is not enabled by default, but you can enable it under Settings > Firefox Labs > Webpage Display > Media: JPEG XL: This adds support for the image format, so that the browser can render it.
• Firefox Translations supports Basque and Galician now.
• The languages Croatian, English (UK), Georgian, Persian, Slovenian, Tajik, Tamil, Tibetan, Turkish, Welsh, and Xhosa now come with a built-in dictionary for the Firefox spellchecker.
• Context menu video controls are now available on sites like TikTok or Instagram. These were blocked on the sites previously.
• Private browsing now supports temporarily disabling the protection on a specific site. The idea is to use this to display sites correctly in Firefox which would otherwise be broken because of the protective features. Whether that is indeed a good idea or giving sites an incentive to break functionality accidently remains to be seen.
• Links can be copied via a right-click on a tab and the selection of Share > Copy Link on Linux and Windows now. This works, even when the site is not active. You can also copy multiple link paths when several sites are selected.

The official release notes list a few useful changes next to that:

• Zooming in Firefox via the keyboard or mouse now offers “more zoom levels in smaller increments”.
• Downloaded PDFs are opened in a background tab, if you close the original page or switched tabs.

Firefox 152 is a security update. Mozilla lists 40 fixed security issues on the security page. The severity is high, there is no critical fix and no 0-day issue that is already exploited in the wild. Still, it is highly recommended to upgrade as soon as possible to fix the security holes.

Most unmanaged Firefox installations will receive the new update automatically. You can download the update immediately either by opening Firefox and going to Menu > Help > About Firefox, or by downloading the latest version from the Mozilla website.