Firefox
Mozilla Firefox, or simply Firefox, is a free and open-source web browser developed by the Mozilla Foundation and its subsidiary, the Mozilla Corporation. It uses the Gecko rendering engine to display web pages, which implements curr ...
Mozilla
Mozilla is a free software community founded in 1998 by members of Netscape. The Mozilla community uses, develops, publishes and supports Mozilla products, thereby promoting free software and open standards. The community is supported institution ...
browser, first released as Firefox 1.0 on November 9, 2004. Starting with version 5.0, a rapid release cycle was put into effect, resulting in a new major version release every six weeks. This was gradually accelerated further in late 2019, so that new major releases occur on four-week cycles starting in 2020.
Early versions
Rapid releases
In March 2011, Mozilla presented plans to switch to a faster 16-week
development cycle
In software engineering, a software development process or software development life cycle (SDLC) is a process of planning and managing software development. It typically involves dividing software development work into smaller, parallel, or s ...
, similar to
Google Chrome
Google Chrome is a web browser developed by Google. It was first released in 2008 for Microsoft Windows, built with free software components from Apple WebKit and Mozilla Firefox. Versions were later released for Linux, macOS, iOS, iPadOS, an ...
. ''
Ars Technica
''Ars Technica'' is a website covering news and opinions in technology, science, politics, and society, created by Ken Fisher and Jon Stokes in 1998. It publishes news, reviews, and guides on issues such as computer hardware and software, sci ...
'' noted that this new cycle entailed "significant technical and operational challenges" for Mozilla (notably preserving third-party add-on compatibility), but that it would help accelerate Firefox's adoption of new web standards, feature, and performance improvements. This plan was implemented in April 2011. The release process was split into four "channels", with major releases trickling down to the next channel every six to eight weeks. For example, the nightly channel would feature a preliminary unstable version of Firefox 6, which would move to the experimental "Aurora" channel after preliminary testing, then to the more stable "beta" channel, before finally reaching the public release channel, with each stage taking around six weeks. For corporations, Mozilla introduced an Extended Support Release channel, with new versions released every 30 weeks (and supported for 12 more weeks after a new ESR version is released), though Mozilla warned that it would be less secure than the release channel, since security patches would only be backported for high-impact vulnerabilities.
In 2017, Mozilla abandoned the Aurora channel, which saw low uptake, and rebased Firefox Developer Edition onto the beta channel. Mozilla uses
A/B testing
A/B testing (also known as bucket testing, split-run testing or split testing) is a user-experience research method. A/B tests consist of a randomized experiment that usually involves two variants (A and B), although the concept can be also exte ...
and a staged rollout mechanism for the release channel, where updates are first presented to a small fraction of users, with Mozilla monitoring its telemetry for increased crashes or other issues before the update is made available to all users. In 2020, Firefox moved to a four-week release cycle, to catch up with Chrome in support for new web features. Chrome switched to a four-week cycle a year later.
Firefox 5 through 9
Firefox 5 was released on June 21, 2011, three months after the major release of Firefox 4. Firefox 5 is the first release in Mozilla's new rapid release plan, matching
Google Chrome
Google Chrome is a web browser developed by Google. It was first released in 2008 for Microsoft Windows, built with free software components from Apple WebKit and Mozilla Firefox. Versions were later released for Linux, macOS, iOS, iPadOS, an ...
's rapid release schedule and rapid version number increments. Firefox 5 has significantly improved the speed of web-related tasks, such as loading pages with
combo box
A combo box is a commonly used graphical user interface
A graphical user interface, or GUI, is a form of user interface that allows user (computing), users to human–computer interaction, interact with electronic devices through Graphics, gr ...
es or
MathML
Mathematical Markup Language (MathML) is a pair of mathematical markup languages, an application of XML for describing mathematical notations and capturing both its structure and content. Its aim is to natively integrate mathematical formulae ...
. Mozilla also integrated the
HTML video
HTML video is a subject of the HTML specification as the standard way of playing video via the web. Introduced in HTML5, it is designed to partially replace the object element and the previous de facto standard of using the proprietary Adobe Fla ...
WebM
WebM is an audiovisual media file format. It is primarily intended to offer a royalty-free alternative to use in the HTML video and the HTML audio elements. It has a sister project, WebP, for images. The development of the format is sponsored by ...
standard into the browser, allowing playback of WebM videos.
Firefox 6 was released on August 16, 2011, introducing a permissions manager, new address bar highlighting (the
domain name
In the Internet, a domain name is a string that identifies a realm of administrative autonomy, authority, or control. Domain names are often used to identify services provided through the Internet, such as websites, email services, and more. ...
is black while the rest of the
URL
A uniform resource locator (URL), colloquially known as an address on the Web, is a reference to a resource that specifies its location on a computer network and a mechanism for retrieving it. A URL is a specific type of Uniform Resource Identi ...
is gray), streamlining the look of the site identity block, a quicker startup time, a ScratchPad JavaScript compiler, and many other new features. This update also brought the infamous feature that caused JavaScript entered in the address bar to not run.
Firefox 7 was released on September 27, 2011, and uses as much as 50% less
RAM
Ram, ram, or RAM most commonly refers to:
* A male sheep
* Random-access memory, computer memory
* Ram Trucks, US, since 2009
** List of vehicles named Dodge Ram, trucks and vans
** Ram Pickup, produced by Ram Trucks
Ram, ram, or RAM may also ref ...
than Firefox 4 as a result of the MemShrink project to reduce Firefox memory usage. Firefox 7.0.1 was released a few days later to fix a rare, but serious, issue with add-ons not being detected by the browser. Some URLs are trimmed in the address bar, so the "
http
HTTP (Hypertext Transfer Protocol) is an application layer protocol in the Internet protocol suite model for distributed, collaborative, hypermedia information systems. HTTP is the foundation of data communication for the World Wide Web, wher ...
://" scheme no longer appears, but "
https
Hypertext Transfer Protocol Secure (HTTPS) is an extension of the Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP). It uses encryption for secure communication over a computer network, and is widely used on the Internet. In HTTPS, the communication protoc ...
://" is still displayed. Trailing slashes on domains are also hidden, for example: https://www.example.org/ becomes https://www.example.org.
Firefox 8 was released on November 8, 2011 and prompts users about any previously installed add-ons. Upon installation, a
dialog box
In computing, a dialog box (also simply dialog) is a graphical control element in the form of a small window that communicates information to the user and prompts them for a response.
Dialog boxes are classified as " modal" or "modeless", dep ...
prompted users to enable or disable the add-ons. Add-ons installed by third-party programs were disabled by default, but user-installed add-ons were enabled by default. Mozilla judged that third-party-installed add-ons were problematic, taking away user control, lagging behind on compatibility and security updates, slowing down Firefox startup and page loading time, and cluttering the interface with unused
toolbar
The toolbar, also called a bar or standard toolbar (originally known as ribbon), is a graphical control element on which on-screen icons can be used. A toolbar often allows for quick access to functions that are commonly used in the program. Some ...
s. Added option in preferences to lazy load session tabs (prior to that it could be switched by config setting since version 4.0 beta 7).
Firefox 9 was released on December 20, 2011, includes various new features such as Type Inference, which boosts JavaScript performance up to 30%, improved theme integration for
Mac OS X Lion
OS X Lion, also known as Mac OS X Lion, (version 10.7) is the eighth major release of macOS, Apple's desktop and server operating system for Mac computers.
A preview of OS X 10.7 Lion was publicly shown at the "Back to the Mac" Apple Speci ...
, added two-finger swipe navigation for Mac OS X Lion, added support for querying
Do Not Track
Do Not Track (DNT) is a deprecated non-standard HTTP header field designed to allow internet users to opt out of tracking by websites—which includes the collection of data regarding a user's activity across multiple distinct contexts, and the ...
status via JavaScript, added support for font-stretch, improved support for text-overflow, improved standards support for HTML5, MathML, and CSS, and fixed several security problems. It also features a large list of bug fixes.
Firefox 10 through 16
Firefox 10 and Firefox ESR 10 were released on January 31, 2012. Firefox 10 added a full screen API and improved WebGL performance, support for CSS 3D Transforms and for
anti-aliasing Anti-aliasing may refer to any of a number of techniques to combat the problems of aliasing in a sampled signal such as a digital image or digital audio recording.
Specific topics in anti-aliasing include:
* Anti-aliasing filter, a filter used b ...
in the WebGL standard for hardware-accelerated 3D graphics. These WebGL updates mean that more complex site and Web app animations can render smoothly in Firefox, and that developers can animate 2D objects into 3D without plug-ins. It also introduced a new CSS Style Inspector, which allow users to check out a site's structure and edit the CSS without leaving the browser. Firefox 10 assumed all add-ons made for at least Firefox 4 were compatible. The add-on developer is able to alert Mozilla that the add-on is incompatible, overriding compatibility with version 10 or later. This new rule also does not apply to themes.
Firefox 10 ESR is the first ''Extended Support Release (ESR)'' as previously on January 10, 2012, where the Mozilla Foundation announced the availability of an ESR version of Firefox. Firefox ESR is intended for groups who deploy and maintain the desktop environment in large organizations such as universities and other schools, county or city governments and businesses. During the extended cycle, no new features will be added to a Firefox ESR, only high-risk/high-impact security vulnerabilities or major stability issues will be corrected.
Firefox 11 was released on March 13, 2012. Firefox 11 introduced many new features, including migration of bookmarks and history from
Google Chrome
Google Chrome is a web browser developed by Google. It was first released in 2008 for Microsoft Windows, built with free software components from Apple WebKit and Mozilla Firefox. Versions were later released for Linux, macOS, iOS, iPadOS, an ...
HTML5
HTML5 (Hypertext Markup Language 5) is a markup language used for structuring and presenting hypertext documents on the World Wide Web. It was the fifth and final major HTML version that is now a retired World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) recommend ...
video controls, and the Style Editor ( CSS). The update also fixed many bugs, and improved developer tools.
Firefox 12 was released on April 24, 2012. Firefox 12 introduced few new features, but it made many changes and laid the ground work for future releases. Firefox 12 for Windows added the Mozilla Maintenance Service which can update Firefox to a newer version without a UAC prompt. It also added line numbers in the "Page Source" and centered find in page results. There were 89 improvements to Web Console, Scratchpad, Style Editor, Page Inspector, Style Inspector, HTML view and Page Inspector 3D view (Tilt). Many bugs were fixed, as well as many other minor under-the-hood changes. Firefox 12 is the final release to support
Windows 2000
Windows 2000 is a major release of the Windows NT operating system developed by Microsoft, targeting the server and business markets. It is the direct successor to Windows NT 4.0, and was Software release life cycle#Release to manufacturing (RT ...
and Windows XP RTM & SP1.
Firefox 13 was released on June 5, 2012. Starting with this version, Windows support was exclusively for Windows XP SP2/SP3, Windows Vista, and Windows 7. Firefox 13 adds and updates several features, such as an updated new tab and home tab page. The updated new tab page is a feature similar to the Speed Dial already present in
Opera
Opera is a form of History of theatre#European theatre, Western theatre in which music is a fundamental component and dramatic roles are taken by Singing, singers. Such a "work" (the literal translation of the Italian word "opera") is typically ...
,
Google Chrome
Google Chrome is a web browser developed by Google. It was first released in 2008 for Microsoft Windows, built with free software components from Apple WebKit and Mozilla Firefox. Versions were later released for Linux, macOS, iOS, iPadOS, an ...
,
Apple Safari
Safari is a web browser developed by Apple Inc., Apple. It is built into several of List of Apple operating systems, Apple's operating systems, including macOS, iOS, iPadOS, and visionOS, and uses Apple's open-source software, open-source bro ...
, and
Internet Explorer
Internet Explorer (formerly Microsoft Internet Explorer and Windows Internet Explorer, commonly abbreviated as IE or MSIE) is a deprecation, retired series of graphical user interface, graphical web browsers developed by Microsoft that were u ...
. The new tab page will display nine of the user's most visited websites, along with a cached image. In addition to the updated new tab and home tab page, Mozilla has added a user profile cleaner/reset, reduced hang times, and implemented tabs on demand. The user profile cleaner/reset provides a way for users to fix Firefox errors and glitches that may occur. Mozilla's tabs on demand restores tabs that were open in the previous session, but will keep the tabs unloaded until the user requests to view the page.
Firefox 14 was released on June 26, 2012, for mobile devices only, just outside the regular release schedule of the web browser. In order to sync the version numbers of the desktop and mobile versions of Firefox, Mozilla decided to release version 14.0.1 for both mobile and desktop on July 17, 2012, instead of Firefox 14 version 14.0 for the desktop and version 14.0.1 for mobile devices.
Firefox 14 introduces a new hang detector (similar to how Mozilla currently collects other data) that allows Mozilla to collect, analyze, and identify the cause of the browser freezing/hanging. Mozilla uses this information to improve the responsiveness of Firefox for future releases. In addition to tackling freezing and not-responding errors that occur because of Firefox, Mozilla implemented opt-in activation for plugins such as
Flash
Flash, flashes, or FLASH may refer to:
Arts, entertainment, and media
Fictional aliases
* The Flash, several DC Comics superheroes with super speed:
** Flash (Jay Garrick)
** Barry Allen
** Wally West, the first Kid Flash and third adult Flash ...
and
Java
Java is one of the Greater Sunda Islands in Indonesia. It is bordered by the Indian Ocean to the south and the Java Sea (a part of Pacific Ocean) to the north. With a population of 156.9 million people (including Madura) in mid 2024, proje ...
. Mozilla wants to reduce potential problems that could arise through the unwanted use of third-party applications (
malware
Malware (a portmanteau of ''malicious software'')Tahir, R. (2018)A study on malware and malware detection techniques . ''International Journal of Education and Management Engineering'', ''8''(2), 20. is any software intentionally designed to caus ...
, freezing, etc.).
Firefox 15 was released on August 28, 2012, with a " Responsive Design View" developer tool, adds support for the Opus audio format, and adds preliminary native
PDF
Portable document format (PDF), standardized as ISO 32000, is a file format developed by Adobe Inc., Adobe in 1992 to present documents, including text formatting and images, in a manner independent of application software, computer hardware, ...
support (disabled by default).
Firefox 15 introduced silent updates, an automatic update that will update Firefox to the latest version without notifying the user, a feature that the web browsers
Google Chrome
Google Chrome is a web browser developed by Google. It was first released in 2008 for Microsoft Windows, built with free software components from Apple WebKit and Mozilla Firefox. Versions were later released for Linux, macOS, iOS, iPadOS, an ...
and Internet Explorer 8 and above have already implemented, although the user was able to disable that function. The startup time in Firefox 15 was improved for Windows users.
Firefox 16 was released on October 9, 2012, fixing outstanding bugs of the new features in
Mac OS X Lion
OS X Lion, also known as Mac OS X Lion, (version 10.7) is the eighth major release of macOS, Apple's desktop and server operating system for Mac computers.
A preview of OS X 10.7 Lion was publicly shown at the "Back to the Mac" Apple Speci ...
. There were improvements made to startup speed when a user wants to restore a previous session. Support for viewing
PDF
Portable document format (PDF), standardized as ISO 32000, is a file format developed by Adobe Inc., Adobe in 1992 to present documents, including text formatting and images, in a manner independent of application software, computer hardware, ...
files inline was added in placement of a plugin. Support for web apps was added.
Opus
Opus (: opera
Opera is a form of History of theatre#European theatre, Western theatre in which music is a fundamental component and dramatic roles are taken by Singing, singers. Such a "work" (the literal translation of the Italian word "opera ...
audio format is now enabled by default.
The roll-out of Firefox 16 revision 16.0.0 was stopped on October 10, 2012, after Mozilla detected a security flaw and recommended downgrading to 15.0.1 until the issue could be fixed. The security flaw was fixed in version 16.0.1, which was released the following day, October 11, 2012.
Firefox 17 through 23
Firefox 17 and Firefox ESR 17 were released on November 20, 2012. It was not planned to bring as many user-facing features as previous releases, it brings improved display of location bar results, improvements to the silent update mechanism for users with incompatible add-ons, and refinements to the Click-To-Play system introduced in Firefox 14. A new feature for developers, an HTML tree editor is also included. Firefox 17 is the first version of the browser that uses SpiderMonkey 17. Starting with the release, Mac OS X support was offered exclusively for
Snow Leopard
The snow leopard (''Panthera uncia'') is a species of large cat in the genus ''Panthera'' of the family Felidae. The species is native to the mountain ranges of Central and South Asia. It is listed as Vulnerable on the IUCN Red List because ...
, Lion, and
Mountain Lion
The cougar (''Puma concolor'') (, ''Help:Pronunciation respelling key, KOO-gər''), also called puma, mountain lion, catamount and panther is a large small cat native to the Americas. It inhabits North America, North, Central America, Cent ...
.
Firefox 18 was released on January 8, 2013. A new feature for Firefox 18 is IonMonkey, Mozilla's next generation JavaScript engine, it also uses some functions of
WebRTC
WebRTC (Web Real-Time Communication) is a free and open-source project providing web browsers and mobile applications with real-time communication (RTC) via application programming interfaces (APIs). It allows audio and video communication and ...
. Firefox 19 was released on February 19, 2013, featuring a built-in
PDF
Portable document format (PDF), standardized as ISO 32000, is a file format developed by Adobe Inc., Adobe in 1992 to present documents, including text formatting and images, in a manner independent of application software, computer hardware, ...
viewer.
Firefox 20 was released on April 2, 2013, and introduced a panel-based download manager, along with H.264 decoding on the tag (on Windows only), and per-window private browsing. It also includes a new developer toolbox, that combines all developer tools into one panel.
Firefox 21 was released on May 14, 2013. The Social API now supports multiple providers, and an enhanced three-state UI for Do Not Track (DNT).
Firefox 22 was released on June 25, 2013.
WebRTC
WebRTC (Web Real-Time Communication) is a free and open-source project providing web browsers and mobile applications with real-time communication (RTC) via application programming interfaces (APIs). It allows audio and video communication and ...
is now enabled by default. Partial CSS Flexbox support was added (flex-wrap support was scheduled for Firefox 28). A new feature for Firefox 22 was OdinMonkey, Mozilla's next generation JavaScript engine.
Firefox 23 was released on August 6, 2013. It includes an updated Firefox logo, mixed content blocking enabled by default to defend against
man-in-the-middle attack
In cryptography and computer security, a man-in-the-middle (MITM) attack, or on-path attack, is a cyberattack where the attacker secretly relays and possibly alters the communications between two parties who believe that they are directly communi ...
s, implementation of the form control attribute in HTML5, dropping support for the HTML element as well as the text-decoration:blinkCSS element, the restriction to have to "switch to a different search provider across the entire browser", and a global browser console, a new network monitor among other things. JavaScript is automatically enabled by the update, without regard to the previous setting, and the ability to turn it off has been removed from the interface, the "contentious" change was made because many websites depend on JavaScript and it was felt that users unaware that they had disabled JavaScript were attributing the resulting unpredictable
layout
In general terms, a layout is a structured arrangement of items within certain limits, or a plan for such arrangement.
Specifically, layout may refer to:
* Page layout, the arrangement of visual elements on a page
** Comprehensive layout (comp), ...
to
software bug
A software bug is a design defect ( bug) in computer software. A computer program with many or serious bugs may be described as ''buggy''.
The effects of a software bug range from minor (such as a misspelled word in the user interface) to sev ...
s in Firefox.
Firefox 24 through 30
Firefox 24 and Firefox 24 ESR were released on September 17, 2013. The release includes support for the new scrollbar style in Mac OS X 10.7 (and newer), closing tabs to the right, an improved browser console for debugging, and improved SVG rendering, among other things. It is the first version of the browser that uses SpiderMonkey 24.
Firefox 25 was released on October 29, 2013. Firefox 25 Nightly was at one point slated to include the Australis theme, but Australis did not actually land on Nightly until Firefox 28, did not make it to Firefox 28 Aurora channel, and was finally available with Firefox 29. This release added support for attribute, background-attachment:local in CSS, along with
Web audio
HTML audio is a subject of the HTML specification, incorporating audio, including speech to text, all in the browser.
<audio> element
The element represents a sound, or an audio stream. It is commonly used to play back a single audio fil ...
API support, a separate find bar for each tab and many other bug fixes.
Firefox 26 was released on December 10, 2013. Firefox 26 changed the behavior of
Java
Java is one of the Greater Sunda Islands in Indonesia. It is bordered by the Indian Ocean to the south and the Java Sea (a part of Pacific Ocean) to the north. With a population of 156.9 million people (including Madura) in mid 2024, proje ...
plugins to "click-to-play" mode instead of automatically running them. It also added support for H.264 on Linux, password manager support for script-generated fields, and the ability for Windows users without advanced write permissions to update Firefox, as well as many bug fixes and developer-related changes.
Firefox 27 was released on February 4, 2014. It adds improved Social API and SPDY 3.1 support, as well as enabling of TLS 1.1 and 1.2 by default after having been tested through a toggle in about:config since version 23 (TLS 1.1) and 24, released on September 17, 2013. Also, it brings many bug fixes, security improvements, and developer-related changes. Firefox 28 was released on March 18, 2014, and added support for VP9 video decoding and support for Opus in WebM.
Firefox 29 was released on April 29, 2014, and includes a redesigned interface codenamed Australis, it also removes the add-on bar and moves its content to the navigation bar. Additionally, it introduced automatic correction of protocol typos to the address bar, meaning that, for example, ttps:// is automatically corrected to https://. Firefox 30 was released on June 10, 2014. It adds support for
GStreamer
GStreamer is a Pipeline (computing), pipeline-based multimedia framework that links together a wide variety of media processing systems to complete complex workflows. For instance, GStreamer can be used to build a system that reads files in one f ...
1.0 and a new sidebar button, and most plugins are not activated by default.
Firefox 31 through 37
Firefox 31 and Firefox 31 ESR were released on July 22, 2014. Both versions added search field on the new tab page and were improved to block
malware
Malware (a portmanteau of ''malicious software'')Tahir, R. (2018)A study on malware and malware detection techniques . ''International Journal of Education and Management Engineering'', ''8''(2), 20. is any software intentionally designed to caus ...
from downloaded files, along with other new features. Firefox 31 ESR is the first ESR to include the Australis interface, unifying the user experience across different Firefox versions. Firefox 24.x.x ESR versions would be automatically updated to ESR version 31 after October 14, 2014.
Firefox 32 was released on September 2, 2014. It shows off HTTP caching improvements, adds
HiDPI
Pixels per inch (ppi) and pixels per centimetre (ppcm or pixels/cm) are measurements of the pixel density of an electronic image device, such as a computer monitor or television display, or image digitizing device such as a camera or image scanne ...
/
Retina
The retina (; or retinas) is the innermost, photosensitivity, light-sensitive layer of tissue (biology), tissue of the eye of most vertebrates and some Mollusca, molluscs. The optics of the eye create a focus (optics), focused two-dimensional ...
support in the Developer Tools UI and widens HTML5 support, among other things.
Firefox 33 was released on October 14, 2014. It now has ''off-main-thread compositing'' (OMTC) enabled by default on Windows (which brings
responsiveness
Responsiveness as a concept of computer science refers to the specific ability of a system or functional unit to complete assigned tasks within a given time. For example, it would refer to the ability of an artificial intelligence system to und ...
improvements),
OpenH264
OpenH264 is a free software library for real-time encoding and decoding video streams in the H.264/MPEG-4 AVC format. It is released under the terms of the Simplified BSD License."
History Move to free-to-use binaries
On October 30, 2013, Rowa ...
support, search suggestions on about:home and about:newtab,
address bar
In a web browser, the address bar (also location bar or URL bar) is the element that shows the current URL. The user can type a URL into it to navigate to a chosen website. In most modern browsers, non-URLs are automatically sent to a search eng ...
search improvements, session restore reliability improvements, and other changes.
Firefox 33.1 was released on November 10, 2014, celebrating Firefox's 10-year anniversary.
Firefox 33.1.1 was released for desktop only on November 14, 2014, fixing a startup crash.
Firefox 34 was released on December 1, 2014. It brings ''Firefox Hello'' (a
WebRTC
WebRTC (Web Real-Time Communication) is a free and open-source project providing web browsers and mobile applications with real-time communication (RTC) via application programming interfaces (APIs). It allows audio and video communication and ...
client for voice and video chat), an improved search bar, and the implementation of
HTTP/2
HTTP/2 (originally named HTTP/2.0) is a major revision of the HTTP network protocol used by the World Wide Web. It was derived from the earlier experimental SPDY protocol, originally developed by Google. HTTP/2 was developed by the HTTP Working ...
(draft14) and ALPN, together with other features. It also disables SSLv3, and enables the ability to recover from a locked Firefox process and to switch themes and personas directly in the customization mode. Additionally, the default search engine for North America was changed to
Yahoo
Yahoo (, styled yahoo''!'' in its logo) is an American web portal that provides the search engine Yahoo Search and related services including My Yahoo, Yahoo Mail, Yahoo News, Yahoo Finance, Yahoo Sports, y!entertainment, yahoo!life, an ...
, and for Belarusian, Kazakh, and Russian locales it was changed to Yandex.
Firefox 35 was released on January 13, 2015. It brings support for a room-based conversations model to the Firefox Hello chat service, and other functions, it also includes security fixes. Firefox 36 was released for desktop on February 24, 2015, bringing full
HTTP/2
HTTP/2 (originally named HTTP/2.0) is a major revision of the HTTP network protocol used by the World Wide Web. It was derived from the earlier experimental SPDY protocol, originally developed by Google. HTTP/2 was developed by the HTTP Working ...
support and other smaller improvements and fixes.
Firefox 37 was released on March 31, 2015, bringing a heartbeat user rating system, which provides user feedback about the Firefox, and improved protection against website impersonation via OneCRL centralized certificate revocation. Also, Bing search is changed to use HTTPS for secure searching, and added is support for opportunistic encryption of the HTTP traffic where the server supports HTTP/2's AltSvc feature.
Firefox 38 through 44
Both Firefox 38 and Firefox 38 ESR were released on May 12, 2015, with new tab-based preferences, Ruby annotation support and availability of WebSockets in web workers, along with the implementation of the BroadcastChannel API and other features and security fixes.
Firefox 39 was released on July 2, 2015, disabling insecure SSLv3 and RC4, improving performance for IPv6 fallback to IPv4 and including various security fixes. Firefox 39.0.3 was released on August 6, 2015, to fix a zero-day exploit.
Firefox 40 was released on August 11, 2015. On
Windows 10
Windows 10 is a major release of Microsoft's Windows NT operating system. The successor to Windows 8.1, it was Software release cycle#Release to manufacturing (RTM), released to manufacturing on July 15, 2015, and later to retail on July 2 ...
, the UI was revamped to reflect the overall appearance of Windows 10, this interface would allow for improved usability on
touchscreen
A touchscreen (or touch screen) is a type of electronic visual display, display that can detect touch input from a user. It consists of both an input device (a touch panel) and an output device (a visual display). The touch panel is typically l ...
s when used in the operating system's "Tablet mode". Firefox 40 includes additional security features, including the filtering of pages that offer
potentially unwanted program
A potentially unwanted program (PUP) or potentially unwanted application (PUA) is software that a user may perceive as unwanted or unnecessary. It is used as a subjective tagging criterion by security and parental control products. Such software ma ...
s, and warnings during the installation of unsigned extensions, in future versions, signing of extensions will become mandatory, and the browser will refuse to install extensions that have not been signed. Firefox 40 also includes performance improvements, such as off-main-thread compositing on Linux.
Firefox 41 was released on September 22, 2015. Among many additions are the ability to set a profile picture for a Firefox account, enhanced IME support using
Text Services Framework
The Text Services Framework (TSF) is a COM framework and API in the Microsoft Windows operating system that supports advanced text input and text processing. It was introduced in Windows XP. The Language Bar is the core user interface for Text S ...
, and instant messaging on Firefox Hello.
Firefox 42 was released on November 3, 2015. Among many additions are private browsing with tracking protection, IPv6 support in WebRTC, and the ability to view a HTML source in the tab.
Firefox 43 was released on December 15, 2015. Major changes included the availability of a 64-bit version for Windows 7 and above, and a new strict blocklist.
Firefox 44 was released on January 26, 2016. The warning pages for certificate errors and untrusted connections is redesigned, support enablied for H.264 and WebM/VP9 video on systems that don't support MP4/H.264 as well as for the brotli compression format via HTTPS content-encoding on all systems. The "Ask me every time" cookies option was additionally removed without any notifications.
Firefox 45 through 51
Firefox 45 and Firefox 45 ESR were released on March 8, 2016. Instant Browser sharing was added through Hello, the addition of Guarani locale, the ability to filter snapshot output in memory tool, and the removal of the Tab Groups (panorama) feature.
Firefox 46 was released on April 26, 2016. The JavaScript Just In Time (JIT) Compiler and GTK3 integration were improved, the latter being Linux only, alongside HKDF support for Web Crypto API.
Firefox 47 was released on June 7, 2016. Support was added for Google's Widevine CDM on Windows and Mac OS X so streaming services like Amazon Video can switch from Silverlight to encrypted HTML video alongside the VP9 video codec for users with fast machines, the ability of embedded YouTube videos to play with HTML video if Flash is not installed, and the addition of the
Latgalian language
Latgalian (, ) is an East Baltic language. The language law of Latvia classifies it as a "historical variant of the Latvian language". It is mostly spoken in Latgale, the eastern part of Latvia. The 2011 Latvian census established that 164,500 ...
.
Firefox 48 was released on August 2, 2016. Download protection was enhanced, and the Windows Remote Access Service modem Autodial was removed. It was also the first official release with "Electrolysis" (multi-process Firefox, meaning that the interface and web pages are running in separate processes in the computer) was enabled.
Firefox 49 was released on September 20, 2016. The Firefox Login Manager was revamped, support for
Mac OS X Snow Leopard
Mac OS X Snow Leopard (version 10.6) (also referred to as OS X Snow Leopard) is the seventh major release of macOS, Apple's desktop and server operating system for Macintosh computers.
Snow Leopard was publicly unveiled on June 8, 2009, at A ...
,
Mac OS X Lion
OS X Lion, also known as Mac OS X Lion, (version 10.7) is the eighth major release of macOS, Apple's desktop and server operating system for Mac computers.
A preview of OS X 10.7 Lion was publicly shown at the "Back to the Mac" Apple Speci ...
, and
OS X Mountain Lion
OS X Mountain Lion (version 10.8) is the ninth major release of macOS, Apple Inc.'s desktop and server operating system for Macintosh computers. OS X Mountain Lion was released on July 25, 2012, for purchase and download through the Mac App S ...
were dropped, video performance was improved for users on systems that support
SSE3
SSE3, Streaming SIMD Extensions 3, also known by its Intel code name Prescott New Instructions (PNI), is the third iteration of the SSE instruction set for the IA-32 (x86) architecture. Intel introduced SSE3 in early 2004 with the Prescott revis ...
without hardware acceleration, a
context menu
A context menu (also called contextual, shortcut, and pop up or pop-up menu) is a menu in a graphical user interface (GUI) that appears upon user interaction, such as a right-click mouse operation. A context menu offers a limited set of choic ...
was added to HTML audio and video that let users loop files or play files at 1.25x speed, improvements in about:memory reports for tracking font memory usage, and the removal of Firefox Hello. Additionally, support for processors without
SSE2
SSE2 (Streaming SIMD Extensions 2) is one of the Intel SIMD (Single Instruction, Multiple Data) processor supplementary instruction sets introduced by Intel with the initial version of the Pentium 4 in 2000. SSE2 instructions allow the use of ...
Pentium III
The Pentium III (marketed as Intel Pentium III Processor, informally PIII or P3) brand refers to Intel's 32-bit x86 desktop and mobile CPUs based on the sixth-generation P6 (microarchitecture), P6 microarchitecture introduced on February 28, 1999 ...
under Windows is dropped.
Firefox 50 was released on November 15, 2016. Playback video was expanded onto more sites without plugins with WebM EME Support for Widevine on Windows and Mac, performance was improved on SDK extensions or extensions using the SDK module loader, download protection for a large number of executable file types on Windows, Mac OS, and Linux was added, and support for WebGL was added to more than 98 percent of users on Windows 7 and newer.
Firefox 51 was released on January 24, 2017. Among the many additions were added support for FLAC (Free Lossless Audio Codec) playback, better Tab Switching, support for WebGL 2, and a warning that is displayed when a login page does not have a secure connection.
Firefox 52 through 59
Firefox 52 and Firefox 52 ESR were released on March 7, 2017. An important aspect of Firefox ESR 52.0 is that it is the first ESR version based on the Firefox Electrolysis (Firefox 48) code base. Firefox 52 added support for
WebAssembly
WebAssembly (Wasm) defines a portable binary-code format and a corresponding text format for executable programs as well as software interfaces for facilitating communication between such programs and their host environment.
The main goal of ...
(while disabled in Firefox ESR 52), an emerging standard that brings near-native performance to Web-based games, apps, and software libraries without the use of plugins, automatic
captive portal
A captive portal is a web page accessed with a web browser that is displayed to newly connected users of a Wi-Fi or wired network before they are granted broader access to network resources. Captive portals are commonly used to present a landing o ...
detection for easier access to Wi-Fi hotspots, and user warnings for insecure HTTP pages with logins. Firefox 52 dropped support for NPAPI plugins like
Microsoft Silverlight
Microsoft Silverlight is a discontinued application framework designed for writing and running rich internet applications, similar to Adobe Inc., Adobe's Run time environment, runtime, Adobe Flash. While early versions of Silverlight focused on ...
and Java with the exception of Adobe Flash Player (except the ESR version which still supports NPAPI).
Firefox 53 was released on April 19, 2017. Starting with Firefox 53, Microsoft Windows support is exclusively for
Windows 7
Windows 7 is a major release of the Windows NT operating system developed by Microsoft. It was Software release life cycle#Release to manufacturing (RTM), released to manufacturing on July 22, 2009, and became generally available on October 22, ...
and above. Other major changes included improved graphics stability for Windows users with the addition of compositor process separation, the addition of light and dark "compact" themes based on the themes included with Firefox Developer Edition, the removal of support for 32-bit
macOS
macOS, previously OS X and originally Mac OS X, is a Unix, Unix-based operating system developed and marketed by Apple Inc., Apple since 2001. It is the current operating system for Apple's Mac (computer), Mac computers. With ...
and Linux for processors older than the
Pentium 4
Pentium 4 is a series of single-core central processing unit, CPUs for Desktop computer, desktops, laptops and entry-level Server (computing), servers manufactured by Intel. The processors were shipped from November 20, 2000 until August 8, 20 ...
and
Opteron
Opteron is AMD's x86 former server and workstation Microprocessor, processor line, and was the first processor which supported the AMD64 instruction set architecture (known generically as x86-64). It was released on April 22, 2003, with the ''Sl ...
processors, a new visual design for audio and video controls, support for
WebM
WebM is an audiovisual media file format. It is primarily intended to offer a royalty-free alternative to use in the HTML video and the HTML audio elements. It has a sister project, WebP, for images. The development of the format is sponsored by ...
video with
alpha compositing
In computer graphics, alpha compositing or alpha blending is the process of combining one image with a background to create the appearance of partial or full transparency. It is often useful to render picture elements (pixels) in separate pass ...
, which allows playing videos with transparent backgrounds, and support for displaying estimated reading time for pages in Reader Mode.
Firefox 54 was released on June 13, 2017. Major changes included simplifying the download button and download status panel, support for multiple content processes, the ability to create and save custom devices in
responsive web design
Responsive web design (RWD) or responsive design is an approach to web design that aims to make web pages render well on a variety of devices and window or screen sizes from minimum to maximum display size to ensure usability and satisfactio ...
mode, and improved audio and video playback in the browser.
Firefox 55 was released on August 8, 2017. Major changes included the launch of Windows support for WebVR, options that let users optimize recent performance improvements, simplification of the installation process with a streamlined Windows stub installer, improvements to the address bar, and a redesigned printing menu in Reader Mode.
Firefox 56 was released on September 28, 2017. A redesigned layout was added the "Preferences" page, the launch of Firefox Screenshots, support for address form autofill, hardware acceleration for AES-GCM, update of the Safe Browsing protocol to version 4, improved security or verifying update downloads, and improved support for WebExtensions. Another change was the introduction of the ''mozlz4'' format, a proprietary variant of the ''lz4'' compression format (.mozlz4 and .jsonlz4 file extensions instead of .json.lz4 as per unix/linux standard). Session data is stored in the ''lz4'' format instead of plain text. Firefox 56 cannot recognize the legacy plain text session files, only the ''lz4''-encoded ones.
Firefox 57 was released on November 14, 2017, with the name ''Firefox Quantum''.ZDNet dubbed it a "comeback" following years of falling market share against
Google Chrome
Google Chrome is a web browser developed by Google. It was first released in 2008 for Microsoft Windows, built with free software components from Apple WebKit and Mozilla Firefox. Versions were later released for Linux, macOS, iOS, iPadOS, an ...
. The release included a new interface design, codenamed "Photon", and a new rendering engine almost twice as fast as the previous one used. One of the largest visual changes in Photon was the removal of the search box from the address bar. Firefox 57 features an updated logo, and no longer supports ''legacy add-ons'' using XUL technologies.
Google
Google LLC (, ) is an American multinational corporation and technology company focusing on online advertising, search engine technology, cloud computing, computer software, quantum computing, e-commerce, consumer electronics, and artificial ...
also became the default search engine in the US and Canada, a departure from
Yahoo
Yahoo (, styled yahoo''!'' in its logo) is an American web portal that provides the search engine Yahoo Search and related services including My Yahoo, Yahoo Mail, Yahoo News, Yahoo Finance, Yahoo Sports, y!entertainment, yahoo!life, an ...
, which had been the default search engine in the US and Canada since 2014.
Firefox 58 was released on January 23, 2018. With it, support for credit card autofill was added, support for user profiles was removed, a warning to alert users and site owners of planned security changes to sites affected by the gradual distrust plan for the Symantec certificate authority, full screen bookmark management with folder support, support for FLAC (Free Lossless Audio Codec) playback, and the ability to change the status bar color in themes.
Firefox 59 was released on March 13, 2018. With it, the UI was optimized and improved, Real-Time Communication (RTC) was improved, Firefox Screenshots was revamped, support was added for W3C specs for pointer events, Private Browsing Mode had path information on referrers removed to prevent cross-site tracking, the addition of Firefox as an Assist app, and newly aded support for HLS (HTTP Live Streaming) playback for greater compatibility with video sites.
Firefox 60 through 67
Firefox 60 and Firefox 60 ESR were released on May 9, 2018. It includes a policy engine that allows customized Firefox deployments in enterprise environments, using Windows Group Policy or a cross-platform JSON file, enhancements to New Tab / Firefox Home, a revamped Cookies and Site Storage section in Preferences for greater clarity and control of first- and third-party cookies, the application of Quantum CSS to render browser UI, support for Web Authentication API, which allows USB tokens for website authentication, an option for Linux users to show or hide page titles in a bar at the top of the browser, improved WebRTC audio performance and playback for Linux users, and exclusive support for extensions built using the WebExtension API (ESR).
Firefox 61 was released on June 26, 2018. Improvements were made to support the dark theme mode across the entire Firefox user interface, support was added for a future to allow WebExtensions to hide tabs,, access to more search engines was added, alongside bookmark syncing performance improvements.
Firefox 62 was released on September 5, 2018. FreeBSD support was added for WebAuthn, a preference that allows users to distrust certificates issued by Symantec in advance of removing all trust for Symantec-issued certificates was added, improved graphics rendering for Windows users without accelerated hardware using Parallel-Off-Main-Thread Painting, CSS Variable Fonts (OpenType Font Variations) were introduced, support for CSS Shapes was added to allow for richer web page layouts, improved scrolling performance, and faster page load times over Wi-Fi connections by loading from the network cache if disk cache is slow. The bookmarks' Description field was deprecated and will be removed completely in future releases.
Firefox 63 was released on October 23, 2018. Performance and visual improvements for Windows and macOS users, content blocking, WebExtensions running in their own process in Linux, recognition of the operating system accessibility setting for reducing animation, the addition of
Amazon
Amazon most often refers to:
* Amazon River, in South America
* Amazon rainforest, a rainforest covering most of the Amazon basin
* Amazon (company), an American multinational technology company
* Amazons, a tribe of female warriors in Greek myth ...
and
Google
Google LLC (, ) is an American multinational corporation and technology company focusing on online advertising, search engine technology, cloud computing, computer software, quantum computing, e-commerce, consumer electronics, and artificial ...
as Top Sites tiles on the Firefox Home (New Tab) page, and the removal of the "Never Check for Updates" option from "about:preferences" and the "Open in Sidebars" feature from the Library.
Firefox 64 version 64.0 was released on December 11, 2018. Firefox 64 for desktop provides better recommendations, enhanced tab management, easier performance management, improved performance for Mac and Linux users by enabling link time optimization (Clang LTO), more seamless sharing on Windows, the option to remove add-ons using the context menu on their toolbar buttons, TLS certificates issued by Symantec that are no longer trusted by Firefox, and the availability of WebVR on macOS.
Firefox 65 was released on January 29, 2019. Performance and web compatibility with support for the
WebP
WebP is a raster graphics file format developed by Google intended as a replacement for JPEG, PNG, and GIF file formats. It supports both lossy and lossless compression, as well as animation and alpha transparency.
Google announced the WebP ...
image format were made, enhanced security for macOS, Linux, and Android users via stronger stack smashing protection which is now enabled by default for all platforms (both desktop and Android), enhanced tracking protection, updated language settings in Preferences, support for Handoff on macOS, a better video streaming experience for Windows users, easier performance management, an improved pop-up blocker, the availability of Firefox for Windows with 32- and 64-bit MSI installers for easier enterprise deployments, and additional support for Flexbox.
Firefox 66 was released on March 19, 2019. Websites can no longer automatically playing sound, smoother scrolling prefromance, an improved search experience and performance and better user experience for extensions, the addition of basic support for macOS Touch Bar and of support for Windows Hello on Windows 10, along with the enabling of AV1 support on 32-bit Windows and macOS.
Firefox 67 was released on May 21, 2019. Major changes included lowering priority of setTimeout during page load, suspending (unloading) unused tabs to clear
memory
Memory is the faculty of the mind by which data or information is encoded, stored, and retrieved when needed. It is the retention of information over time for the purpose of influencing future action. If past events could not be remembe ...
, the ability to block known
cryptominer
A cryptocurrency (colloquially crypto) is a digital currency designed to work through a computer network that is not reliant on any central authority, such as a government or bank, to uphold or maintain it.
Individual coin ownership records ...
s and
fingerprint
A fingerprint is an impression left by the friction ridges of a human finger. The recovery of partial fingerprints from a crime scene is an important method of forensic science. Moisture and grease on a finger result in fingerprints on surfa ...
ers in the Custom settings of the Content Blocking preferences, improvements to keyboard accessibility, usability and security improvements in Private Browsing, and protection against running older versions of the browser which can lead to data corruption and stability issues.
Firefox 68 through 77
Firefox 68 and Firefox 68 ESR were released on July 9, 2019. Among the many additions were: Expansion of Dark Mode in Reader view, a new reporting feature in about:addons, cryptomining and fingerprinting protections, WebRender for Windows 10, Windows Background Intelligent Transfer Service (BITS) update download support, user and enterprise added certificates read from the OS by default (68 ESR), improved web page painting performance by avoiding redundant calculations during paint, and introduction of WebAuthn (the Web Authentication API, Android).
Firefox 69 was released on September 3, 2019. Improvements were made to Tracking Protection, the Block Autoplay feature was introduced, support for the Web Authentication HmacSecret extension via Windows Hello for versions of Windows 10 May 2019 or newer was added, support for receiving multiple video codecs was added, JIT support for ARM64, and improvements for download UI, performance (Windows 10), and battery life (macOS).
Firefox 70 was released on October 22, 2019. More privacy protection from Enhanced Tracking Protection and Firefox Lockwise was introduced, improvements to core engine components for better browsing on a greater number o sites, a stand-alone Firefox account menu for easy access to Firefox services like Monitor and Send, the dark mode preference for built-in Firefox pages, and inactive CSS support.
Firefox 71 was released on December 3, 2019. A revamp to the integrated password manager Lockwise was made, more information about Enhanced Tracking Protection in action was added, picture-in-picture mode was introduced for Windows, and native MP3 decoding was added on Windows, Linux, and macOS.
Firefox 72 was released on January 7, 2020. Among the additions were: the replacement of notification request pop-ups, the ETP blocking fingerprinting scripts by default, the availability of picture-in-picture video for macOS and Linux, and the removal of support for blocking images from individual domains because of low usage and poor user experience.
Firefox 73 was released on February 11, 2020. Among the additions were: a new global default zoom level setting, a "readability backplate" solution which places a block of background color between the text and background image, improved audio quality when playing back audio at a faster or slower speed, a prompt to save logins if a field in a login form was modified, and rolling out WebRender to laptops with Nvidia graphics cards with drivers newer than 432.00, and screen sizes smaller than 1920x1200.
Firefox 74 was released on March 10, 2020. Additions included: improvement of login management with the ability to reverse alpha sort (Name Z-A) in Lockwise, simple importing of bookmarks and history from
Microsoft Edge
Microsoft Edge is a Proprietary Software, proprietary cross-platform software, cross-platform web browser created by Microsoft and based on the Chromium (web browser), Chromium open-source project, superseding Edge Legacy. In Windows 11, Edge ...
on Windows and Mac, use of Add-ons Manager to remove add-ons installed by external applications,
Facebook
Facebook is a social media and social networking service owned by the American technology conglomerate Meta Platforms, Meta. Created in 2004 by Mark Zuckerberg with four other Harvard College students and roommates, Eduardo Saverin, Andre ...
Container, which prevents Facebook from tracking across the web, and support for mDNS ICE. This release was also the first with TLS 1.0 and 1.1 disabled.
However, out of concern for access to information during the
COVID-19 pandemic
The COVID-19 pandemic (also known as the coronavirus pandemic and COVID pandemic), caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), began with an disease outbreak, outbreak of COVID-19 in Wuhan, China, in December ...
, TLS 1.0 and 1.1 support was readded on March 31, 2020.
Firefox 75 was released on April 7, 2020. Additions included: a number of improvements with Firefox's revamped address bar, the local cache of all trusted Web PKI Certificate Authority certificates known to Mozilla, the availability of Firefox in Flatpak on Linux, and the integration of Direct Composition on Windows.
Firefox 76 was released on May 5, 2020. Additions included: strengthened protections for online account logins and passwords, with innovative approaches to managing accounts during this critical time, allowing multitasking in Picture-in-Picture, support for Audio Worklets that will allow more complex audio processing like VR and gaming on the web, and two updates to the address bar improving its usability and visibility.
Firefox 77 was released on June 2, 2020. Additions included: pocket recommendations on Firefox' new tab for UK users, a new about:certificate page, and the removal of the browser.urlbar.oneOffSearches preference.
Firefox 78 through 90
Firefox 78 and Firefox 78 ESR were released on June 30, 2020. Among the many additions were: the Protections Dashboard, the addition of the Refresh button to the Uninstaller, a new WebRender rolled out to Windows users with Intel GPUs, the addition of Pocket Recommendations to users in the UK, the requirement of GNU libc 2.17, libstdc++ 4.8.1 and GTK+ 3.14 or newer versions on
Linux
Linux ( ) is a family of open source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an kernel (operating system), operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991, by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically package manager, pac ...
, the disabling of TLS 1.0 and 1.1 and other improvements, and the addition of Kiosk Mode, client certificates, Service Worker and Push APIs, the Block Autoplay feature, picture-in-picture support, and the management of web certificates in about:certificate in 78 ESR.
Firefox 79 was released on July 28, 2020. Among the many additions were: a new WebRender rolled out to Windows users with Intel and AMD GPUs, the addition of Pocket Recommendations to users in Germany, the fixes for several crashes while using a screen reader, and updates to the password policy, the enabling of Enhanced Tracking Protection by default, and the ability to switch to Dark Mode.
Firefox 80 was released on August 25, 2020, for desktop. Among the many additions were: the setting as the default system PDF viewer, the new add-ons blocklist enabled to improve performance and scalability, support for RTX and Transport-cc for improved call quality in poor network conditions and better bandwidth estimation and better compatibility with many websites using WebRTC.
Firefox 81 was released on September 22, 2020. Among the many additions were: the ability to pause or play audio or video right from the keyboard or headset, the introduction of the Alpenglow theme, the ability to save, manage, and auto-fill credit card information for U.S. and Canada users, the support of Acroform, which allows users to fill in, print, and save supported PDF forms, the automatic revelation of the Bookmarks toolbar, the expansion of .xml, .svg, and .webp, and fixes for browser native HTML audio/video controls.
Firefox 82 was released on October 20, 2020. Changes included various changes to improve the video watching experience, improved page load and start up performance, saving a webpage to Pocket from the Firefox toolbar, and the ability to automatically purge cookies from sites not visited in 30 days.
Firefox 83 was released on November 17, 2020. Among the many additions were: significant updates to SpiderMonkey and JavaScript engine and replacement of the part of the JavaScript engine that helps to compile and display websites for the user, the introduction of the HTTPS-Only Mode, the support of pinch zooming for users with Windows touchscreen devices and touchpads on Mac devices, support of keyboard shortcuts for fast forwarding and rewinding videos in Picture-in-Picture, improved user interface, improved functionality and design for a number of Firefox search features, support of Acroform, and newly supported add-ons: FoxyProxy, Bitwarden, AdGuard AdBlocker, Tomato Clock, LeechBlock NG, and Web Archives.
Firefox 84 was released on December 15, 2020. Among the many additions were: native support for macOS devices built with Apple silicon CPUs, the rollout of WebRender to MacOS Big Sur, Windows devices with Intel Gen 6 GPUs, and Intel laptops running Windows 7 and 8, and an accelerated rendering pipeline for Linux/GNOME/X11 users for the first time, the use of more modern techniques for allocating shared memory on Linux, improving performance and increasing compatibility with Docker, the option to view open tabs side by side in a grid view, the ability to delete downloaded files within the app, the rollout of WebRender to more users on the Mali-G GPU series.
Firefox 85 was released on January 26, 2021. Among the many additions were: protection from supercookies, a type of tracker that can stay hidden in the browser and track users online, even after they have cleared cookies, the ability to save and access bookmarks more easily, the ability of the password manager to have users remove all their saved logins with one click, as opposed to having to delete each login individually, the removal of
Adobe Flash
Adobe Flash (formerly Macromedia Flash and FutureSplash) is a mostly discontinuedAlthough it is discontinued by Adobe Inc., for the Chinese market it is developed by Zhongcheng and for the international enterprise market it is developed by Ha ...
support, and added support for the :focus-visible pseudo class.
Firefox 86 was released on February 23, 2021. Among the many additions were: added support for simultaneously watching multiple videos in Picture-in-Picture, improved Print functionality with a cleaner design and better integration with the computer's printer settings, credit card management and auto-fill for users in Canada, notable performance and stability improvements achieved by moving canvas drawing and WebGL drawing to the GPU process, the removal of DTLS 1.0 support or establishing WebRTC's PeerConnections, and the introduction of Total Cookie Protection to Strict Mode (both).
Firefox 87 was released on March 23, 2021. Among the many additions and removals were: the addition of SmartBlock, which provides stand-in scripts so that websites load properly, the new default HTTP Referrer policy (both), the improved "Highlight All" feature on Find in Page, full support for macOS built-in screen reader, VoiceOver, the disabling of the Backspace key as a navigation shortcut for the back navigation button, and the removal of Synced tabs, Recent highlights, and Pocket list from the Library menu, and the rollout of WebRender to more devices, with the following mobile GPUs now supported: Adreno 505, Adreno 506, Mali-T (Android).
Firefox 88 was released on April 19, 2021. Among the many additions and removals were: PDF forms supporting JavaScript embedded in PDF files, localized margin units, smooth pinch-zooming using a touchpad on Linux, isolation of window.name data to the website that created it, the removal of the "Take a Screenshot" feature from the Page Actions menu in the url bar, the disabling of FTP support and a new toggle button in the Network panel for switching between JSON formatted HTTP response and raw data.
Firefox 89 was released on June 1, 2021. Among the many additions and removals were: core experience redesigned and modernized to be cleaner, more inviting, and easier to use, simplified browser chrome and toolbar, clear, streamlined menus, updated prompts, inspired tab design, reduced number of alerts and messages, lighter iconography, a refined color palette, and more consistent styling throughout, enhancement of privacy of Private Browsing Mode with Total Cookie Protection, the introduction of the elastic overscroll effect known from many other applications for macOS users, added support for smart zoom, native context menus on macOS, Synced Tabs in the Tabs tray, support for the Event Timing API, and support for the CSS forced-colors media query (both).
Firefox 90 was released on July 13, 2021. Among the many additions and removals were: the application of updates in the background when Firefox is not running on Windows, a new page called about:third-party to help identify compatibility issues caused by third-party applications in Windows, the management of exceptions to HTTPS-Only mode in about:preferences#privacy, working hyperlinks in "Print to PDF", Version 2 of Firefox's SmartBlock feature, the addition of software WebRender for most users without its hardware accelerated version, improved software WebRender performance, removal of FTP support, support for Private Fields in DevTools, support for Fetch Metadata Request Headers, the ability to use client authentication certificates stored in hardware tokens or in Operating System storage, the ability to save, manage, and auto-fill credit card information for users shopping on Firefox, and Back/Forward Cache (aka BFCache) for webpages that use unload event listeners (Android).
Firefox 91 through 101
Firefox 91 and Firefox 91 ESR were released on August 10, 2021. Among the many additions and removals were: a build on Total Cookie Protection, support for logging into Microsoft, work, and school accounts using Windows single sign-on, the return of the Simplify page when printing feature, the addition of a new Scots locale, the address bar providing Switch to Tab results in Private Browsing windows, the automatic enable of High Contrast Mode when "Increase Contrast" is checked on MacOS, catch-up paints for almost all user interactions, the support of JavaScript embedded in PDF files, the addition of SmartBlock, protection from supercookies, support of AcroForm, the removal of support for Adobe Flash (ESR), a "Set Firefox as your default browser" message on notification pane for new installs, the addition of eBay Search to help users with their shopping needs, and default autoplay setting updated to Blocking Audio Only (Android).
Firefox 92 was released on September 7, 2021. Among the many additions and removals were: an automatic upgrade to HTTPS using HTTPS RR as Alt-Svc headers, support of full-range color levels for video playback on many systems, support for images containing ICC v4 profiles on macOS, access of macOS share options from the Firefox File menu, the redesign of certificate error pages for better user experience, and added support for Web Authentication API, which allows USB tokens (such as the use of USB or Bluetooth Security Key) for website authentication (Android).
Firefox 93 was released on October 5, 2021. Among the many additions and removals were: support for the new AVIF image format, which is based on the modern and royalty free AV1 video codec, support for filling more forms for PDF viewer, automatic unload of tabs based on their last access time, memory usage, and other attributes for Windows when available system memory is critically low, blocking downloads that rely on insecure connections, protecting against potentially malicious or unsafe downloads, improved web compatibility for privacy protections with SmartBlock 3.0, a new referrer tracking protection in Strict Tracking Protection and Private Browsing, disabling of TLS ciphersuites that use 3DES, the addition of forward, back, and reload buttons in the toolbar on tablets, the auto-fill of logins and passwords by default, and the merging of site security and privacy info into one icon (Android).
Firefox 94 was released on November 2, 2021. Among the many additions and removals were: a selection of six fun seasonal Colorways (available for a limited time only), the usage of Apple's low power mode for fullscreen video on sites such as
YouTube
YouTube is an American social media and online video sharing platform owned by Google. YouTube was founded on February 14, 2005, by Steve Chen, Chad Hurley, and Jawed Karim who were three former employees of PayPal. Headquartered in ...
and Twitch, the addition of about:unloads, fewer interruptions on Windows because of a background agent that will download and install updates even if Firefox is closed, improved WebGL performance and reduced power consumption for Linux users, the introduction of
Site Isolation
Site isolation is a web browser security feature that groups websites into Sandbox (computer security), sandboxed Process (computing), processes by their associated Same-origin policy, origins. This technique enables the process sandbox to block ...
to better protect all users against side-channel attacks, support for the new Snap Layouts menus when running on
Windows 11
Windows 11 is a version of Microsoft's Windows NT operating system, released on October 5, 2021, as the successor to Windows 10 (2015). It is available as a free upgrade for devices running Windows 10 that meet the #System requirements, Windo ...
, reduced CPU usage during socket polling for HTTPS connections, faster storage initialization, improved cold startup by reducing main thread I/O, and the new Inactive Tabs feature (Android).
Firefox 95 was released on December 7, 2021. Among the many additions and removals were: RLBox, a new technology that hardens Firefox against potential security vulnerabilities in third-party libraries, the addition of Firefox download from the Microsoft Store on Windows 10 and 11, reduced CPU usage on macOS in Firefox and WindowServer during event processing, reduced power usage of software decoded video on macOS, especially in fullscreen, the ability to move the Picture-in-Picture toggle button to the opposite side of the video, the enabling of Site Isolation, a User Agent override for Slack.com, which allows Firefox users to use more Call features and have access to Huddles, the new "Homepage" section in the Settings Menu, Hero Images in the "Jump Back In" section, confirmation of snack bar "Auto-close enabled" when a user enables auto-close from the tab tray, and support of Pocket (Thought Provoking Stories section) in Canada.
Firefox 96 was released on January 11, 2022. Among the many additions and removals were: significant improvements in noise-suppression and auto-gain-control as well as slight improvements in echo-cancellation, reduced main-thread load, the default of all cookies to having a SameSite=lax attribute which helps defend against Cross-Site Request Forgery (CSRF) attacks, the selection of printing odd/even pages, history highlights to recently visited sites, the display of better images for recent bookmarks on the home page, and improved "fill link from clipboard for Android 12 (Android).
Firefox 97 was released on February 8, 2022. Among the many additions and removals were: support and display for the new style of scrollbars on Windows 11, improvements to system font loading which makes opening and switching to new tabs faster in certain situations for macOS, removal of the 18 colorway themes of Firefox 94, removal of support for directly generating PostScript for printing on Linux, with the exception of printing to Postscript printers, and the addition of a new prompt when users attempt to leave private browsing with active downloads (Android).
Firefox 98 was released on March 8, 2022. Among the many additions were: a new optimized download flow, in which, instead of prompting every time, files will download automatically, allowing users to choose from a number of built-in search engines to set as their default, the ability to change Wallpapers on Homepage, and the ability to clear cookies and website data for a single domain (Android). Also,
Yandex
Yandex LLC ( rus, Яндекс, r=Yandeks, p=ˈjandəks) is a Russian technology company that provides Internet-related products and services including a web browser, search engine, cloud computing, web mapping, online food ordering, streaming ...
and Mail.ru were removed as optional search providers.
Firefox 99 was released on April 5, 2022. Among the many additions were: the ability to toggle Narrate in ReaderMode with the keyboard shortcut "n", added support for search—with or without diacritics—in the PDF viewer, support for credit card autofill and capture in Germany and France, the ability to clear cookies and data for a single domain, and improved performance of Pocket articles on the homescreen (Android).
Firefox 100 was released on May 3, 2022. Among the many additions were: support for captions/subtitles display on
YouTube
YouTube is an American social media and online video sharing platform owned by Google. YouTube was founded on February 14, 2005, by Steve Chen, Chad Hurley, and Jawed Karim who were three former employees of PayPal. Headquartered in ...
, Amazon
Prime Video
Amazon Prime Video, known simply as Prime Video, is an American subscription video on-demand over-the-top streaming television service owned by Amazon. The service primarily distributes films and television series produced or co-produced by ...
, and
Netflix
Netflix is an American subscription video on-demand over-the-top streaming service. The service primarily distributes original and acquired films and television shows from various genres, and it is available internationally in multiple lang ...
videos watched in Picture-in-Picture, which now supports video captions on websites that use WebVTT (Web Video Text Track) format, support for HDR video on macOS, hardware accelerated AV1 video decoding on Windows with supported GPUs, video overlay on Windows for Intel GPUs, reducing power usage during video playback, improved fairness between painting and handling other events, support for credit card autofill and capture in the UK, support for profiling multiple java threads, updated History, and bookmark search (Android).
Firefox 101 was released on May 31, 2022. Among the many additions were: the prefers-contrast media query, which allows sites to detect if the user has requested that web content is presented with a higher (or lower) contrast, all non-configured MIME types that can now be assigned a custom action upon download completion, the use of as many microphones at the same time, during video conferencing, added support for large, small, dynamic viewport units and logical ones (*vi and *vb), added web conferencing support for enumerating and selecting multiple audio input devices through navigator.mediaDevices.enumerateDevices(), and added support for using the magnifier on Android 9+ for positioning the cursor in forms on web pages (Android).
Firefox 102 through 114
Firefox 102 and Firefox 102 ESR, released on June 28, 2022, gained the ability to turn off the automatic opening of the download pane, protections against tracking through URL query parameters when Enhanced Tracking Protection is set to "strict", subtitles in Picture-in-Picture (PiP) for sites including
HBO Max
Max (known in other countries as, and soon to be reverted globally to HBO Max) is an American subscription video on-demand over-the-top streaming service. It is a proprietary unit of Warner Bros. Discovery Streaming on behalf of Home Box Of ...
and
Disney+
The Walt Disney Company, commonly referred to as simply Disney, is an American multinational mass media and entertainment industry, entertainment conglomerate (company), conglomerate headquartered at the Walt Disney Studios (Burbank), Walt Di ...
, and improved security by isolating audio decoding into its own sandboxed process.
Firefox 103, released on July 26, 2022, improved responsiveness on macOS during periods of high CPU load by switching to a modern lock API, required fields highlighted in PDF forms, improved performance on high-refresh rate monitors (120 Hz+), improved Picture-in-Picture subtitles, which are now available at Funimation, Dailymotion, Tubi, Hotstar, and SonyLIV, buttons in the Tabs toolbar reachable with Tab, Shift+Tab, and Arrow keys, Windows' "Make text bigger" accessibility setting now affecting all the UI and content pages, rather than only applying to system font sizes, the browser getting pinned to the Windows taskbar during installation on Windows 10 and 11, the removal of a configuration option to allow SHA-1 signatures in certificates; which are not supported, and AMD hardware acceleration support was added.
Firefox 104 was released on August 23, 2022. Among the many additions and removals were: the availability of subtitles for Disney+ in Picture-in-Picture, support for both the scroll-snap-stop property as well as re-snapping, and the ability of the Firefox profiler to analyze power usage of a website for
Apple M1
Apple M1 is a series of ARM-based system-on-a-chip (SoC) designed by Apple Inc., launched 2020 to 2022. It is part of the Apple silicon series, as a central processing unit (CPU) and graphics processing unit (GPU) for its Mac desktops and no ...
and Windows 11 only, while the Firefox UI itself will now be throttled for performance and battery usage when minimized or occluded, in the same way background tabs are.
Firefox 105 was released on September 20, 2022. Among the many additions and removals were: an option to print only the current page from the print preview dialog, support for partitioned service workers in third-party contexts, a swipe to navigate (two fingers on a touchpad swiped left or right to perform history back or forward) on Windows, compliance with the User Timing L3 specification, which adds additional optional arguments to the performance.mark and performance.measure methods to provide custom start times, end times, duration, and attached details, faster searching in large lists for individual items, which replaces array.includes and array.indexOf with an optimized SIMD version, support for the Offscreen Canvas DOM API with full context and font support.
Firefox 106 was released on October 18, 2022. Among the many additions and removals were: the possibility to edit PDFs: including writing text, drawing, and adding signatures, the ability to become the default PDF application on Windows systems on setting Firefox as the default browser, the ability to pin the Windows taskbar on Windows 10 and 11 for simpler access, the redesign of private windows to increase the feeling of privacy, swipe-to-navigate (two fingers on a touchpad swiped left or right to perform history back or forward) for Linux users on Wayland, Text Recognition in images for users of macOS 10.15 and higher, the addition of "Firefox View", the introduction of 18 new Colorways with the launch of "Independent Voices" collection, major upgrade to WebRTC capabilities, and wallpapers for the "Independent Voices" collection.
Firefox 107 was released on November 15, 2022. Among the many additions and removals were: improved performance of the instance when Microsoft's IME and Defender retrieve the URL of a focused document in Windows 11 version 22H2, support of power profiling (visualizing performance data recorded from web browsers) on Linux and Mac with Intel CPUs, in addition to Windows 11 and Apple Silicon, a couple of helpful improvements in DevTools making it easier to debug WebExtensions, with a new argument allowing users to automatically open DevTools just in case, and a Reload button in the DevTools toolbox to see the changes, the availability of Total Cookie Protection, and enabled text selection magnifier for website text.
Firefox 108 was released on December 13, 2022. Among the many additions and removals were: enabling by default of import maps, which allow web pages to control the behavior of JavaScript imports, processes used for background tabs getting the use of efficiency mode on
Windows 11
Windows 11 is a version of Microsoft's Windows NT operating system, released on October 5, 2021, as the successor to Windows 10 (2015). It is available as a free upgrade for devices running Windows 10 that meet the #System requirements, Windo ...
to limit resource use, the ability to open the Process manager via the Shift+Esc keyboard shortcut, improved frame scheduling when under load, support for properly color correcting images tagged with ICCv4 profiles, support for the WebMIDI API and a new experimental mechanism for controlling access to dangerous capabilities, the ability to save web pages as PDF files to conveniently access them later from the Downloads folder, and the ability to organize tabs in the tabs tray by long-pressing on a tab.
Firefox 109 was released on January 17, 2023. Among the many additions and removals were: the enabling of Manifest Version 3 (MV3) extension support by default, the enabling of the Arbitrary Code Guard exploit protection in the media playback utility processes, the native HTML date picker for date and datetime inputs being used with a keyboard alone, a built-in dictionary for the Firefox spellchecker for builds in the Spanish and Argentine Spanish locales, and the removal of Colorways.
Firefox 110 was released on February 14, 2023. Major changes included support for importing bookmarks, history, and password data from the
Opera GX
Opera is a multi-platform web browser developed by its namesake company Opera. The current edition of the browser is based on Chromium. Opera is available on Windows, macOS, Linux, Android, and iOS (Safari WebKit engine). Opera offers two mob ...
and
Vivaldi
Antonio Lucio Vivaldi (4 March 1678 – 28 July 1741) was an Italian composer, virtuoso violinist, impresario of Baroque music and Roman Catholic priest. Regarded as one of the greatest Baroque composers, Vivaldi's influence during his lif ...
web browsers, support for Canvas2D GPU-acceleration, support for GPU "sandboxing" on Windows, and various security fixes along with various improvements made to WebGL to improve performance. There were also various features added for
web developer
A web developer is a programmer who develops World Wide Web applications using a client–server model. The applications typically use HTML, CSS, and JavaScript in the client, and any general-purpose programming language in the server. is used ...
s such as support for CSS size container queries.
Firefox 111 was released on March 14, 2023. Among the many additions and removals were: the enabling of Windows native notifications, the ability for Firefox Relay users to opt-in to create Relay email masks directly from the credential manager, the Silhe Friulian (fur) and Sardinian (sc) locales, support of the use of the rel attribute on form elements, allowing the specification of the relationship between the current document and the form target in a simpler, cross-browser way, the enabling of Origin private file system access, a new storage API that enables web applications to store and retrieve data from and to the filesystem in a sandbox, the ability for users to view PDF documents as they browse, and the addition of Total Cookie Protection to Enhanced Tracking Protection's Strict Mode.
Firefox 112 was released on April 11, 2023. Major changes included the ability to reveal passwords in password fields, the ability to use the middle click button on a
mouse
A mouse (: mice) is a small rodent. Characteristically, mice are known to have a pointed snout, small rounded ears, a body-length scaly tail, and a high breeding rate. The best known mouse species is the common house mouse (''Mus musculus'' ...
to close tabs in the tab list, along with the ability to use the Ctrl + Shift + T
keyboard shortcut
In computing, a keyboard shortcut (also hotkey/hot key or key binding) is a software-based assignment of an action to one or more keys on a computer keyboard. Most Operating system, operating systems and Application software, applications come ...
to restore a previous browser session, among other changes and bug fixes.
Firefox 113 was released on May 9, 2023. Major changes included enhanced Picture-in-Picture; private windows protecting users even better by blocking third-party cookies and storage of content trackers; the inclusion of special characters in passwords generated by the browser; support for AV1 Image Format files containing animations (AVIS), improving support for AVIF images across the web; a tighter Windows GPU sandbox; and the availability of the browser in the Tajik (tg) language.
Firefox 114 was released on June 6, 2023. Major changes included an added UI to manage the DNS over HTTPS exception list; the accessibility of the Bookmarks menu by adding the ''Bookmarks menu'' button to the toolbar, the ability for the user to restrict searches to their local browsing history by selecting ''Search history'' from the History, Library or Application menu buttons; the ability for macOS users to capture video from their cameras in all supported native resolutions, enabling resolutions higher than 1280x720; the possibility for users to reorder the extensions listed in the extensions panel; the preference of FIDO2 / WebAuthn authenticators over USB; the availability of Pocket Recommended content in France, Italy, and Spain (desktop); and the ''Open in app'' button in PDF viewer opening PDFs in an external app (Android).
Firefox 115 through 127
Firefox 115 and Firefox 115 ESR were released on July 4, 2023. Major changes included the ability to bring over payment methods saved in Chrome-based browsers to the browser; the enabling of hardware video decoding for Intel GPUs on Linux; the close buttons on the Tab Manager dropdown; a refreshed and streamlined user interface for importing data in from other browsers; the ability for users without platform support for H264 video decoding to fallback to Cisco's OpenH264 plugin for playback; the ability for middle clicks on the new tab button to open the xclipboard contents in the new tab on Linux (desktop); and the address button's new search bar that allows users to easily switch between search engines and search their bookmarks and browsing history (Android). This version is also notable for the unusually longer lifespan of its ESR branch, as it have been subject of an exceptional support extension to allow older versions of Windows and macOS to continue receiving security updates where the upgrade to newer versions was not possible.
Firefox 116 was released on August 1, 2023. Starting with Firefox 116, Microsoft Windows support is exclusively for Windows 10 and above as well as macOS support being exclusive to 10.15 and above. Major changes included the sidebar switcher allowing users to access Bookmarks, History and Synced Tabs panels easily, quickly switch between them, move the sidebar to another side of the browser window, or close the sidebar; available access to the release notes in the update notification prompt in the form of a "Learn More" link whenever an update is available in English locales; the ability for users to copy any file from their operating system and paste it into the browser; the volume slider in Picture-in-Picture; the possibility to edit existing text annotations; the improvement of the upload performance of HTTP/2 on those with a higher bandwidth delay product; added support for the dirname attribute to pass text directionality information about input and textarea elements to the server; added support for CSP3 external hashes; the Audio Output Devices API that now enables sites to redirect audio from media elements to permitted output devices (speakers) other than the system default for the user-agent; added upport for proper BYOB readers on Fetch and WebTransport, which allows developers to prepare their ArrayBuffer so that it can be reused for read requests and thus saves memory allocation (desktop); and fixes to pull-to-refresh issues and desktop mode's zoom issues on some sites and "Open links in apps" issue when Firefox is not the default browser (Android).
Firefox 117 was released on August 29, 2023. Major changes included the extension of support for credit card autofill to users running the browser in the IT, ES, AT, BE, and PL locales; the ability for macOS users to control the tabability of controls and links via about:preferences; the addition of a dom.event.contextmenu.shift_suppresses_event preference to prevent the context menu from appearing; the browser no longer showing its own screen sharing indicator on Wayland desktop environments; the enhancement of web compatibility inspection with the new CSS compatibility tooltip in the Developer Tools Inspector; added support for improved CSS nesting by default; support for RTCRtpScriptTransform, ReadableStream.from (allowing creation of a ReadableStream from an (async) iterable), and the math-style and math-depth CSS properties and the font-size: math value (desktop); and support for pasting images into contenteditable & designMode elements (Android).
Firefox 118 was released on September 26, 2023. Major changes included the introduction of automated translation of web content, courtesy of the EU-funded Project Bergamot; the use of the FDLIBM math library on all systems to improve anonymity with Fingerprint Protection via web audio in the browser; the restriction of visibility of website fonts to system fonts and language pack fonts to mitigate font fingerprinting in Private Browsing windows; the availability of Video Effects and background blur on Google Meet; the ability for U.S. Firefox Suggest users to see browser add-on suggestions right in the address bar based on their keywords; support for CSS math functions round, mod, rem, pow, sqrt, hypot, log, exp, abs, and sign; OpaqueResponseBlocking enabled by default (desktop); the availability of printing page content from the browser or share menu; the opening of pinned user shortcuts in an existing tab if it already has the same URL; and the clearing of site data being moved from "Browsing history and site data" to the "Cookies and site data" menu item (Android).
Firefox 119 was released on October 24, 2023. Major changes included the addition of Firefox view and the PDF editor; recently closed tabs now persisting between sessions that don't have automatic session restore enabled; the ability to import extensions from Google Chrome; support for the partitioning of Blob URLs, which mitigates a potential tracking vector that third-party agents could use to track an individual; the restriction of the visibility of website fonts to system fonts and language pack fonts in Enhanced Tracking Protection strict mode to mitigate font fingerprinting; an update to the Storage Access API to improve security while mitigating website breakages and further enabling the phase out of third-party cookies in the browser; the addition of Encrypted Client Hello (ECH), which extends the encryption used in TLS connections to cover more of the handshake and better protect sensitive fields; media sniffing no longer being applied to files served as type application/octet-stream; the ability for the mouse pointer to disappear while typing if the relevant Windows mouse properties system setting is enabled; the inclusion of the Santali (sat) language; a fix for an issue causing unexpected jumps in scroll position on Facebook; several enhancements to the Inactive CSS styles feature, which assists in identifying CSS properties that have no effect on an element; the automatic switch to a raw data view if the JSON is invalid or broken; added support for ARIA reflection for simple attributes and default Accessibility Semantics for Custom Elements; added support for credentialless in Cross-Origin-Embedder-Policy; added CSS attr() function for a fallback parameter; easier grouping of items by using the methods Object.groupBy or Map.groupBy (desktop); added support for the prefers-contrast and prefers-reduced-transparency media query on Android 14; and a fix for a crash encountered by some users in fullscreen video (Android).
Firefox 120 was released on November 21, 2023. Major changes included added support for a new "Copy Link Without Site Tracking" feature in the context menu which ensures that copied links no longer contain tracking information; added support for a setting (in Preferences → Privacy & Security) to enable Global Privacy Control and inform websites that the user doesn't want their data to be shared or sold; the enhancement of the Canvas APIs with Fingerprinting Protection for the browser's private windows and ETP-Strict privacy configuration for the protection of users' online privacy; the enabling of Cookie Banner Blocker and URL Tracking Protection by default in private windows for all users in Germany; the import of TLS trust anchors (e.g., certificates) from the operating system root store; the addition of keyboard shortcuts for editing and deleting a selected credential on about:logins; the ability for Ubuntu Linux to import from Chromium when both are installed as Snap packages; added support for corner snapping on Windows and Linux for Picture-in-Picture; the addition of the User Activation API, which allows servers to send resource Link headers before the final HTTP response and improves performance on servers using this feature; the ability for users to use an added devtools feature to simulate browser tabs to be offline; the Style Editor panel's feature of a new "Pretty Print" button located in the footer of the panel, similar to the pretty print button found in the Debugger panel, used to format stylesheets (e.g., those that are minified); the Rules panel within the inspector panel no longer displaying colors in the new CSS Color 4 formats (e.g., OKLCH) as hexadecimal/named colors, ensuring that it matches the original values used; the ability for lh and rlh units to be parsed and computed correctly as lengths; the enabling of WebAssembly GC by default, which allows new languages, such as Dart or Kotlin, to run on the browser (desktop); dozens of new mobile extensions surfacing during the release cycle; and a fix for a tabs tray bug where selecting tabs could accidentally close them instead (Android).
Firefox 121 was released on December 19, 2023. Major changes included a prompt for Windows users to install the Microsoft AV1 Video Extension to enable hardware decoding support for the AV1 video codec from about:support if not already installed; support for Voice Control commands on macOS systems; a default to the Wayland compositor when available instead of XWayland for Linux users; the ability to force links to always be underlined, which can be enabled in the Browsing section of the Settings menu; the floating button in the PDF viewer to simplify deleting drawings, text, and images added in PDFs; the Firefox Debugger including a new feature: an option to disable the debugger; keyword on the current page; the unification of the focus indicator across the toolbox, which is now larger with improved contrast, featuring a white box-shadow for enhanced visibility on blue backgrounds; added support for the :has() selector, which authors to match an element that has, or "anchors", at least one element matching its relative selector; added support for the hanging and each-line keywords for the text-indent CSS property, offering more convenient paragraph layout options for styles such as bibliographies, poetry, etc.; added support for the balance keyword for the text-wrap CSS property, which can improve the appearance of short multi-line text blocks such as long headings or captions by harmonizing the line lengths; added support for the lazy loading iframes, which are only loaded when visible, so non-critical iframes can load later when needed to speed up initial page loads, reduce initial network usage, etc.; added support for tail call elimination in WebAssembly language to improve support for functional languages (desktop); expanded extension capabilities by popular demand, adding new support for over 400 more extensions; the ability for private windows to protect users even better by blocking third-party cookies and storage of content trackers; Enhanced Tracking Protection custom mode including blocking of social trackers by default; a fix for a crash when copying to the clipboard; a fix for a crash when the fullscreen notification was encountered; a fix for rendering issues and crashes on Google Pixel 8 and Samsung Galaxy S22 devices (Android); and various security fixes (both).
Firefox 122 was released on January 23, 2024. Major changes included new displays of images and descriptions for search suggestions when provided by the search engine; improvement in the quality of translated webpages in the translations feature; added support for creating and using passkeys stored in the iCloud Keychain on macOS; the availability of MDN Web Docs article suggestions from Firefox Suggest in the address bar for users searching for web development-related information; the line breaking rules of Web content matching the Unicode Standard, improving Web Browser compatibility for line breaking; a new .deb package for Linux users on Ubuntu, Debian, and Linux Mint; a fix for keyboard navigation in Inspector Rules view; enabled offset-position property which is useful for most of the offset-path values; added support for ray(), basic-shape and coord-box to the offset-path CSS property; added support for rect() and xywh() basic shapes on clip-path and offset-path CSS properties; added support for animating the SVG viewBox attribute using SMIL by animations; LargestContentfulPaint API, which provides timing information about the largest image or text paint before users interact with a web page; added support for hr in select, allowing websites to easily use separators inside a select element; added support for the showpicker method on elements; the fallback URL parser for unknown schemes changed to DefaultURI, improving specification adherence and web compatibility; the ArrayBuffer.prototype.transfer proposal methods, which enables transferring ownership of ArrayBuffer data; added support for the Screen Wake Lock API; recognition of the "webauthn" autocomplete token; the ability for scripts to store cacheAPI data in Private Browsing mode; the tainting of filters that use currentColor as an input to further protect user privacy; Uneven Level Protection Forward Error Correction (ULPFEC) turned on by default (desktop); added default PDF reader; added support for enabling Global Privacy Control; the OS version being reported as "Android 10" for Android's User-Agent string to reduce user fingerprinting information and the risk of some website compatibility issues (Adnroid); and various security fixes (both).
Firefox 123 was released on February 20, 2024. Major changes included the integration of search into Firefox View, allowing the user to search through all of the tabs on each of the section subpages - Recent Browsing, Open Tabs, Recently Closed Tabs, Tabs from other devices, or History; the Web Compatibility Reporting Tool; the ability to translate text in tooltips (i.e. titles) and text displayed in form controls (i.e. placeholder) when translating web pages; the implementation of the address bar settings in the Firefox Settings' Search section; the support for the Network Monitor for saving a response body to disk through the ''Save Response As'' context menu item; the implementation of linearRGB interpolation for SVG gradients, as well as the existing sRGB interpolation; the SVG content falling back to use the default replaced element values of 300px width and 150px height and the feImage no longer failing to render; added support for Early Hints by enabling Preload and Modulepreload support; the application of audio echo cancellation to microphone inputs when the audio output is redirected to another device with setSinkId(); added support for declarative ShadowDOM, providing developers greater flexibility and improved ergonomics when working with ShadowDOMs directly within HTML (desktop); the report of ARM64 Linux's CPU architecture as "x86_64" and ARM and x86 Android's as "armv81" in the User-Agent string and the navigator.platform and navigator.oscpu Web APIs (Android); improved PGO optimizations for macOS ARM64 and Android; the off-main-thread canvas on macOS, Linux and Android; and various security fixes (both).
Firefox 124 was released on March 19, 2024. Major changes included the caret browsing mode now working in the PDF viewer; open tabs now being sorted by either recent activity (which is set by default) or tab order in Firefox View; the population of the Windows taskbar jump list more efficiently, which should allow for a smoother overall browsing experience; the use of the macOS fullscreen API for all types of fullscreen windows; the expansion of Qwant's availability to all languages in the France region along with Belgium, Italy, the Netherlands, Spain, and Switzerland; various security fixes; added support for AbortSignal.any; the ability to use HTTP(S) and relative URLs when creating WebSockets (desktop); the enabling of Pull to Refresh by default; and added support for HTML drag and drop API (which accepts plain text or HTML text by drop operation from external applications) when using a mouse (Android).
Firefox 125 was released for Android, while Firefox 125.0.1 was released for desktop, both on April 16, 2024. Major changes included added support for the AV1 codec for Encrypted Media Extensions (EME), enabling higher-quality playback from video streaming providers; added support for text highlighting for the PDF viewer; the display of pinned tabs in the Open tabs section for Firefox View; the prompt for U.S. and Canadian users to save their addresses upon submitting an address form, allowing the browser to autofill stored address information in the future; the ability to more proactively block downloads from URLs that are considered to be potentially untrustworthy; the URL Paste Suggestion feature providing a convenient way for users to quickly visit URLs copied to the clipboard in the browser address bar; the ability for users of tab-specific Container add-ons to search in the Address Bar for tabs that are open in different containers; an option to enable Web Proxy Auto-Discovery (WPAD) while configured to use system proxy settings; the tab key now only reaching the first option rather than cycling through all available options in a group of radio buttons where no option is selected, and the ability for the arrow keys to navigate between options as they do when there is a selected option, making keyboard navigation more efficient and consistent; the option to disable the Pause Debugger Overlay that appears over the page content when the debugger pauses JavaScript execution; a new drop-down menu button at the bottom of the source view in the Debugger panel, specifically designed for Source Map related actions; added support for the popover global attribute used for designating an element as a popover element; the enabling of WebAssembly multi-memory by default; added support for Unicode Text Segmentation to JavaScript; added support for contextlost and contextrestored events on HTMLCanvasElement and OffscreenCanvas to allow user code to recover from context loss with hardware accelerated 2D canvas; added support for the navigator.clipboard.readText() web API; added support for the content-box and stroke-box keywords of the transform-box CSS property; the align-content property working in block layout, allowing block direction alignment without needing a flex or grid container; removal of support for SVGAElement.text in favor of the more widely implemented SVGAElement.textContent method (desktop); recognition of the theme selection (Dark, Light, Follow Device) setting on Custom Tabs; various improvements to the "Logins and Passwords" settings menu; removal of "Open in App" button when the browser is set as the default PDF Viewer; removal of the variant and extension of BCP47 in the Accept-Language header of HTTP requests for better interoperability with other browsers (Android); and various security fixes (both).
Firefox 126 was released on May 14, 2024. Major changes included the Copy Without Site Tracking option that can now remove parameters from nested URLs, and includes expanded support for blocking over 300 tracking parameters from copied links, including those from major shopping websites; support for Content-encoding: zstd (zstandard compression), which is an alternative to broti and gzip compression for web content, and can provide higher compression levels for the same CPU used, or conversely lower server CPU use to get the same compression; the addition of the Catalan language; enabled AV1 hardware decode acceleration on macOS for M3 Macs; added telemetry to create an aggregate count of searches by category to broadly inform search feature development; the temporary disabling of the URL Paste Suggestion feature while a potential performance issue was being investigated; an option to disable/enable the Developer Tools' split console feature; the implementation of URL.parse(); the enabling of the CSS zoom property by default following a lot of web compatibility and standardization work in the CSSWG; added support for CSS Custom :state() and CustomStateSet pseudo-classes; added support for Screen Wake Lock API; added support for IDBFactory.databases for enumeration of IndexedDB databases (desktop); a fix for issues with the address toolbar on devices with foldable screens; the renaming of "Add-ons" settings to "Extensions" (Android); and various security fixes (both).
Firefox 127 was released on June 11, 2024. Major changes included setting the browser to auto-launch, which optimizes efficiency in our browser-centric digital routines, eliminating manual startup delays and facilitating immediate web access; the enabling of DNS prefetching for HTTPS documents via the rel="dns-prefetch" link hint; the ''Close duplicate tabs'' command available from the ''List all tabs'' widget in the tab bar or a tab context menu; the ability to autimatically upgrade ,