Tag: firefox

Zen Browser

Zen Browser: first look at new open source Firefox-based browser

Posted on by Martin Brinkmann

Recently, there has been a bit of a revival when it comes to forks of the Firefox browser. After Mullvad Browser, it is now Zen Browser that is trying to win the Internet by storm.

The Firefox-based browser is available as an alpha at the time of writing. Despite that, it felt very stable during tests.

The details:

  • Zen Browser is available for Windows, Linux, and macOS.
  • The browser is open source.
  • You can download an installer or a portable version.

Since it is based on Firefox, it shares many of its features with Mozilla’s browser. This includes most of the interface and settings, as well as support for extensions. The interface looks modern and clean.

Here are core differences to Firefox:

  • Tabs are displayed on the sidebar and not horizontally.
  • Split view support to display multiple sites at once.
  • Improved profile management controls.
  • Tab Groups support (coming soon)
  • Telemetry disabled by default.

There may be more. Feel free to leave a comment down below if you spot any other.

Using Zen Browser

Firefox users will feel at home when they use the browser. They can import browsing data and install Firefox add-ons in Zen Browser.

Chrome users who think Firefox looks dated may give the browser a try as well, especially since Chrome is soon disabling old extensions like uBlock Origin.

A core difference is that tabs are displayed on the sidebar on the left. There does not seem to be an option to move tabs to the classic horizontal position. Maybe that is coming at a later point.

The settings include a compact mode, which auto-hides the sidebar and displays it on hover. You may furthermore hide the top title bar as well in that mode.

Another option available is to make the URL bar floating when selected. This moves it to the middle of the browser window automatically.

The New Tab page displays just a search option by default. You can add recent shortcuts and Internet shortcuts with a click on the customize button. There is also an option to enable three types of wallpapers: solid color, abstract, or photos.

A sync feature is also available, which requires creation of an account. Major browser features, such as password management, spell checking, translations (via Firefox Translations), or Developer Tools, are also supported.

Closing Words

Zen Browser is updated regularly right now, but it is still an alpha that is in development. Most users may want to wait for the first stable release to give this browser a try, if they are interested in it.

Another thing that may need improving is that the website reveals little about the team behind the browser. While that is not always a necessity, it would improve trust in the project if that would be made clearer.

All in all, a browser to put on the watchlist to check out again in the future.

Have you tried Zen Browser? What is your take on the browser? Would you use it? Feel free to leave a comment down below.

Chrome

Keep on blocking in a free world: how to switch from Chrome to Firefox

Posted on by Martin Brinkmann

Google Chrome users who have extensions installed may soon have some or even all of their installed extensions disabled by Google.

While all browser extensions may be impacted, it is ad blockers and privacy extensions that are impacted the most.

One example: uBlock Origin, arguably the most loved and powerful content blocker available for browsers, will not be offered anymore for Chrome and all other Chromium-based browsers.

This means that you cannot install the browser extension anymore in Chrome, Microsoft Edge, Vivaldi, Opera, and myriads others.

One exemption: Brave Software revealed recently that it plans to continue support for uBlock Origin. This would be the one exemption at the time of writing.

The developer of uBlock Origin has created a lite-version of the extension. Called uBlock Origin Lite, it remains available for Chrome. Its functionality is reduced, however.

Furthermore, users of Chrome who use uBlock Origin need to download and install uBlock Origin Lite manually. A click on the “find alternative” button in Chrome

How to find out if you are impacted by the change

Chrome Extensions Support
Google Chrome highlights extensions that will soon no longer be compatible with the browser

Do the following to find out if extensions that you have installed in Chrome are impacted:

  • Load chrome://extensions/ in the browser’s address bar. You may also open the page manually by going to Menu > Extensions > Manage Extensions.
  • If you see “These extensions may soon no longer be supported” at the top, you are affected by the change.

Tip: you can check out a detailed guide about this here.

Google lists all incompatible extensions. Each features a “find alternative” button, which opens a special page on the Chrome Web Store that highlights extensions that continue to remain compatible with Chrome in the future.

For uBlock Origin, Google suggests the following options:

  • uBlock Origin Lite
  • Adblock Plus
  • Stands Adblocker
  • Ghostery Tracker & Adblocker

While all block ads, none offers the functionality of uBlock Origin.

What you can do about it

You have just a few options at this point:

  1. Keep on using Chrome until Google disables the extensions. You may then extend support for about a year using Enterprise policies.
  2. Keep on using Chrome and use a different browser extension that works for you, hoping that Google does not introduce any other changes in the future that may impact it.
  3. Switch to Brave Browser. This is a valid option only if you want to keep on using uBlock Origin, AdGuard, uMatrix, or NoScript.
  4. Switch to Firefox or a Firefox-based browser. The extensions, including uBlock Origin, remain available and maintained for Firefox.

The first option is valid for all Chromium-based browsers, but it is temporary only. Google will remove the Enterprise policy next year, and that marks the end of support in Chrome.

As you see, you have a few options only. While you could keep on using a Chromium-based browser, Brave Browser, it is unclear for how long Brave will support the four special extensions.

Admittedly, it is also unclear for how long Mozilla will support the old extensions system. If it sees an uptick in users, as some Chrome users may migrate to Firefox because of the changes Google implements, it could very well be for a long time.

Are you affected by the change? Do you have any extensions that you rely on that would make you switch browsers, if your current favorite would not support them anymore? Feel free to leave a comment down below.

Advertising

How to disable Firefox’s built-in ad-tracking feature

Posted on by Martin Brinkmann

With the release of Firefox 128 came the integration of a new experimental feature that Mozilla calls Privacy-Preserving Attribution.

The feature is turned on by default, which means that users of the browser need to become active, if they want to disable it.

Mozilla published a support webpage that explains that Privacy-Preserving Attribution is.

Here is the main quote:

Mozilla is prototyping this feature in order to inform an emerging Web standard designed to help sites understand how their ads perform without collecting data about individual people. By offering sites a non-invasive alternative to cross-site tracking, we hope to achieve a significant reduction in this harmful practice across the web.

In other words: sites and advertisers may use the built-in feature for tracking.

Like Google Chrome’s Ad Privacy feature, it is using the term privacy loosely, some would say disingenuously.

Both systems change how users are tracked and call it an improvement to privacy. In the end, it still means that users are tracked. The fundamental difference is that users are no longer tracked on an individual level.

Mozilla says that its new system can only be used by a small number of sites in Firefox 128. The organization does not mention these sites.

How to disable Ad-Tracking in Firefox

Firefox Website Advertising Preferences

For privacy, disabling these features is better than keeping them enabled or enabling them.

Here is how you do that in Firefox:

  1. Select the Firefox Menu and then Settings when the menu opens.
  2. Switch to Privacy & Security on the main Settings page.
  3. Scroll down until you come to Website Advertising Preferences.
  4. Uncheck the box “Allow websites to perform privacy-preserving ad measurement”.

That is all there is to it.

Pro tip: The user preference dom.private-attribution.submission.enabled determines whether this feature is turned on or off. Set it to false to disable it.

Closing Words

It is not without irony that Mozilla’s implementation in Firefox is in fact worse from a user’s point of view than Google’s. Google is prompting users, using euphemistic words, about the ad tracking feature. Mozilla has just enabled the feature without prompting users about it.

Mozilla has recently bought an ad-tech startup called Anonym, which it says is working on privacy-preserving ad technology.

Are you a Firefox user? What is your take on this? Feel free to leave a comment down below!

Firefox

Mozilla extends Firefox support on Windows 7 and 8 devices

Posted on by Martin Brinkmann

Mozilla has changed the original end of support deadline for Firefox on Windows 7 and Windows 8 devices. The organization’s original plan was to end support in September 2024.

This coincided with the release of the next Firefox ESR base and would allow Mozilla to unload legacy code from Firefox.

Byron Jourdan, Mozilla’s Senior Director of Product Management, confirmed on Reddit that support will be extended.

He wrote:

We’re planning to extend support for Windows 7 users past the currently planned date and give them better options for migrating to a new PC when they choose to.

The confirmation was posted during an Ask Me Anything (AMA) session of Mozilla’s leadership team on Reddit in June (spotted by Sören Hentzschel)

Jourdan does not provide specifics on the extension, only that support will be extended for as long as usage numbers are still high.

About 10% of Firefox users are still using Windows 7 or Windows 8 / 8.1 at the time of writing. That is significant enough for Mozilla to extend support.

Firefox users who run the browser on Windows 7 or 8 devices were moved to Firefox 115 ESR some time ago. This is the Extended Support Release, which offers better stability as new features are only introduced when the ESR-base changes.

This happens when Firefox 128 is going to be released on July 9, 2024. The previous ESR, 115 in this case, continues to be maintained for a bit longer.

Mozilla planned to drop support for it on September 3, 2024 with the release of Firefox 115.15.

While the official release schedule has not been updated yet, it seems likely that Mozilla will extend the end of Firefox 115 ESR.

Chromium-based browsers like Google Chrome or Microsoft Edge are no longer supporting the old Windows versions.

Closing Words

Firefox users on Windows 7 or 8 will continue to receive security updates for the foreseeable future. Mozilla has yet to update the official support pages to reflect the change.

Do you use Firefox? Are you affected by the change?

Firefox

Firefox 127 point updates incoming – here is what we know

Posted on by Martin Brinkmann

Mozilla plans to release the first Firefox 127 point update later today. Firefox 127.0.1 will be released for all supported platforms. It is a non-security update that fixes four different issues in the browser.

The release won’t include the fix for YouTube playback issues mentioned earlier this week. It will be in Firefox 127.0.2, so expect this release shortly thereafter.

Concerning Firefox 127.0.1, here is what is fixed in this release:

  • Fixed an issue that could cause Firefox users to lose access to sessions of tabs during upgrades. This was caused by a bug that happened only when users would dismiss the primary password prompt.
  • Fixed a slow audio speed issue on Linux that started with Firefox 127.0. It only happened if the preference accessibility.monoaudio.enable was set to TRUE.
  • The loading of the full Windows installer failed “in some circumstances” when executing the stub installer.
  • Firefox has been incorrectly rejecting cookies for “certain websites” since Firefox 127. One affected website is Solarwinds Papertrail.

Mozilla plans to release the new version of Firefox to all supported channels later today.

Firefox 127.0 was released last week to the public. It introduced a number of important changes, including:

  • It is now possible to add another layer of protection to the passwords functionality. This is available on Windows and macOS, and adds the operating system’s authentication as the barrier.
  • Firefox will upgrade HTTP media on HTTPS pages automatically, or block the media from loading.
  • Improved screenshots tool, which now supports taking screenshots from certain file types.

What about you? Have you tried Firefox recently? Did you encounter any of these bugs? Feel free to leave a comment down below.

YouTube Firefox Playback issue

Try these fixes if you have problems playing 1080p+ videos on YouTube in Firefox

Posted on by Martin Brinkmann

For approximately four months, some Firefox users have experienced video playback issues while playing videos on YouTube.

Affected users noted that certain videos would stop playing on the site all of a sudden. YouTube would show a loading animation and it appeared that buffering was the culprit in many cases.

When Mozilla started to analyze the issue, it quickly discovered that 1080p or higher quality videos were affected only.

In particular, Mozilla discovered that 1080p, 2k and 4k videos on YouTube were affected when played in Firefox. The issues did not occur on every video playback and not for every user.

The issue is linked to the VP9 protocol that Google uses on YouTube.

Mozilla is keeping track of the issue here, but there is no fix available yet. This has not stopped some of the affected users from trying different things to get the issue fixed on their end.

Here are three solutions that worked for some affected users, but not for all of them:

  • Reduce the video quality with a click on the settings icon in the video player and the selection of quality from the menu that opens.
  • Install the enhanced-h264ify extension for Firefox. The extension switches playback to H.264 by default, but you can experiment with different codecs to see if any work.
  • Try setting the value of network.http.http3.enable to False on about:config.

These workarounds worked for some of the affected users, but not for everyone. Some lower the video quality, but they at least let affected users watch the videos that do not work otherwise.

Another option is to switch to a different browser for the time being, all Chromium-based browsers work, which should not surprise anyone, or third-party services such as Invidious or Freetube.

Did you experience issues on YouTube lately? Google has been cracking down on adblock users heavily in recent time.

Firefox

Firefox is getting Tab Previews soon

Posted on by Martin Brinkmann

Mozilla has launched support for Tab Previews in Firefox Nightly officially. Firefox displays a thumbnail image of the open webpage on hover once the feature is enabled.

Current versions of Firefox display just the title of the website on hover. Firefox shows just the first few characters of a title on the tab itself by default.

While the title is sufficient for some users, others may prefer to see a preview of the actual web content. This may help identify the right webpage and thus tab when switching tabs in Firefox.

Once enabled, Firefox shows a preview of the webpage on hover.

Firefox users who run the Nightly version may enable Tab Previews in the following way:

  1. Load about:config in the Firefox address bar.
  2. Click on Accept the Risk and Continue.
  3. Search for browser.tabs.cardPreview
  4. Double-click on browser.tabs.cardPreview.enabled to set the value to True, , if it is not true already.
  5. Double-click on browser.tabs.cardPreview.showThumbnails to set the value to True, if it is not true already.
  6. Restart Firefox.

You should get previews now when you hover over a loaded tab in the browser.

Disable tab previews: if you do not like tab previews, you can disable them by setting browser.tabs.cardPreview.enabled to False.

A third preference determines how fast or slow previews are shown. This is browser.tabs.cardPreview.delayMs, which you may also change on about:config. The value is in milliseconds. Reduce the number and previews are shown quicker, or increase it, to get more hover time before tab previews are shown.

Bonus tip: set browser.taskbar.previews.enable to True to show up to 20 thumbnail images of open webpages in Firefox when hovering over the Firefox icon on the taskbar of the operating system. You can change that number by modifying browser.taskbar.previews.max on about:config.

Closing Words

Mozilla will enable Tab Previews in Firefox by default in the future. Good news is that users can disable the feature, if they have no use for it. Will take months before the feature lands in Firefox Stable.

Will you keep tab previews enabled or are you using them already in another browser?

Mozilla is adding better profile management to Firefox

Posted on by Martin Brinkmann

Mozilla is working on improving the profile management capabilities of its Firefox web browser. While Firefox has supported profiles for a long time, managing and switching between profiles has not been exactly user friendly.

Currently, Firefox users have two main options to manage profiles. The first is accessible by loading about:profiles in the Firefox address bar.

This opens a page that lists all available profiles, contains options to create a new profile, launch a profile in a new browser instance, or switch the default profile of Firefox.

You may alternatively start Firefox with the parameter -p or -profilemanager to launch the profile manager on startup.

Profiles: profiles are entirely separate in Firefox. This means that no personal data is shared between them. This includes bookmarks, passwords, installed extensions, preferences, and customziations.

The new Firefox profile manager

The new profile manager that Mozilla is working on integrates into the Firefox main menu. A click on the menu icon displays the name of the default profile near the top.

A click on the icon displays all available profiles and management options. The menu lists the following options currently:

  • Rename the current profile.
  • Delete the current profile.
  • Launch one of the other profiles.
  • Create a new Firefox profile.
  • Manage all Firefox profiles.

The new profile manager is a work in progress. Mozilla plans to launch it in 2024 and some of it is available in Firefox Nightly already.

For that, it is necessary to do the following:

  1. Load about:config in the Firefox address bar.
  2. Proceed if you see a warning screen.
  3. Search for browser.profiles.enabled.
  4. Toggle the value of the preference to true with a click on the button on its right.
  5. Restart the Firefox web browser.

Closing Words

Better profile management is a welcome addition to Firefox. Long-time users of Firefox know about profiles, but this has not been highlighted to new users in a long time. Most Firefox users are probably unaware of the browser’s profile support.

Adding support to the main menu could change that for the better. You can keep taps on the development on Bugzilla.

What about you? Do you work with different user profiles?

bounce

Mozilla is testing Bounce Tracking Protection in Firefox

Posted on by Martin Brinkmann

Mozilla’s Firefox web browser could soon block sites and services from bounce tracking Firefox users to improve privacy.

Bounce tracking is a widely used form of tracking that redirects requests. This form of tracking happens in the background, which means that users are usually not aware of it.

Here is an example. A click on Link A should lead to Destination B. With bounce tracking, Bounce C is added, so that the request goes through Bounce C before it reaches the destination.

  • Without: Link A > Destination B
  • With: Link A > Bounce C > Destination B

There can be multiple bounces. With a bounce server involved in the loading process, users can be identified by the operators of the bounce server.

The W3C Community Group Draft report defines Bounce Tracking in the following way:

Bounce tracking refers to the use of redirects in a top-level context (including HTTP 3xx statuses, meta elements with http-equiv=refresh attributes, and script-directed navigation that doesn’t wait for user input) along with link decoration to join user identities between sites.

Bounce Tracking Protection in Firefox

Mozilla is testing the new privacy feature in Firefox Nightly currently. It runs in dry-run mode currently, which means that it is not blocking, but only reporting.

The data that is collected during the dry run helps Mozilla test and optimize the feature.

It will be enabled fully in Firefox Nightly before it lands in Firefox Stable eventually.

Not the first browser to implement the privacy feature

Mozilla is not the first web browser developer that is adding bounce tracking protection to a browser.

Brave Software introduced the feature back in October 2021 in Brave Nightly. It is now available in Brave Stable and was improved in 2022 with a feature that Brave Software called Unlinkable Bouncing.

This feature reduces the effectiveness of bounce tracking further through the use of temporary DOM storage.

Google’s Chrome browser supports bounce tracking mitigations as well, but only if third-party cookies are blocked in the browser according to this webpage.

Closing Words

Mozilla may be a little bit late to the party, but this is still a welcome privacy addition to Firefox. There is no ETA yet for the integration in Firefox Stable. Provided that tests are successful, it is likely that the feature lands in Firefox later this year.

With the new interim CEO in charge, Mozilla has launched several user-friendly features in Firefox or is working on integrating them.

Have you tried Firefox recently?

Firefox 125.0.3

Firefox 125.0.3 fixes five non-security bugs

Posted on by Martin Brinkmann

Mozilla plans to release Firefox 125.0.3 later today. The point update fixes five non-security issues in the browser.

Here are the bugs:

  • Firefox tried to load https://0.0.0.1 in a blank tab when trying to launch another instance of the browser.
  • Fixed incorrect font selection for Japanese locale users in some situations.
  • Fixed a unicode character text dragging issue on Linux systems.
  • Fixed an issue that caused inconsistent focus handling of <select> elements.
  • Fixed a correctness error when using arguments.length.

Firefox users affected by one of the issues may want to update the browser as soon as possible. Everyone else should not feel in a hurry to update to the new version.

The next major Firefox release, Firefox 126, will hit the servers on May 14, 2024.

Firefox 125 release history

Firefox 125.0.3 is the second point update for Firefox 125 already. Technically it is the third, but Mozilla decided to release Firefox 125.0.1 instead of Firefox 125 to address a “high-severity quality issue” in Firefox 125 shortly before release.

Firefox 125.0.1 introduced a number of improvements. Highlights were:

  • Support for AV1 codec for Encrypted Media Extensions, which enables higher-quality video streams using the technology.
  • Text highlighting in the Firefox PDF viewer.
  • Proactive blocking of “more” untrustworthy downloads.
  • Address saving and auto-filling for users in the United States and Canada.

Firefox 125.0.2 pulled the proactive blocking feature again from the browser as it was causing “unexpected problems”. Mozilla plans to reintroduce it in the Firefox web browser in a future version.

How to check for updates

Most Firefox installations are configured to update to new versions automatically. Users who want to install updates early may select Menu > Help > About Firefox on desktop devices to do so. Note that this works only after the official release by Mozilla.

Have you tried Firefox lately? Feel free to leave a comment below.