Mozilla Firefox

Mozilla Firefox is a fast, light and tidy open source web browser. At its public launch in 2004 Mozilla Firefox was the first browser to challenge Microsoft Internet Explorer’s dominance. Since then, Mozilla Firefox has consistently featured in the top 3 most popular browsers globally and this is set to continue thanks to the release of Firefox 30. The key features that have made Mozilla Firefox so popular are the simple and effective UI, browser speed and strong security capabilities. The browser is particularly popular with developers thanks to its open source development and active community of advanced users.

Easier Browsing

Mozilla put of a lot of resources into creating a simple but effective UI aimed at making browsing quicker and easier. They created the tab structure that has been adopted by most other browsers. In recent years Mozilla has also focused on maximizing browsing area by simplifying toolbar controls to just a Firefox button (which contains settings and options) and back/forward buttons. The URL box features direct Google searching as well as an auto predict/history feature called Awesome Bar. On the right side of the URL box there are bookmarking, history and refresh buttons. To the right of the URL box is a search box which allows you to customize your search engine options. Outside of that a view button controls what you see below the URL. Next to that you have the download history and home buttons.

Speed

Mozilla Firefox boasts impressive page load speeds thanks to the excellent JagerMonkey JavaScript engine. Start up speed and graphics rendering are also among the quickest in the market. Firefox manages complex video and web content using layer-based Direct2D and Driect3D graphics systems. Crash protection ensures only the plugin causing the issue stops working, not the rest of the content being browsed. Reloading the page restarts any affected plugins. The tab system and Awesome Bar have been streamlined to launch/get results very quickly too.

Security

Firefox was the first browser to introduce a private browsing feature which allows you to use the internet more anonymously and securely. History, searches, passwords, downloads, cookies and cached content are all removed on shutdown. Minimizing the chances of another user stealing your identity or finding confidential information. Content security, anti-phishing technology and antivirus/antimalware integration ensures your browsing experience is as safe as possible.

Personalisation & Development

One of the best features of the Firefox UI is customization. Simply right click on the navigation toolbar to customize individual components or just drag and drop items you want to move around. The inbuilt Firefox Add-ons Manager allows you to discover and install add-ons within the browser as well as view ratings, recommendations and descriptions. Read about the top recommended add-ons for Mozilla Firefox on TechBeat. Thousands of customizable themes allow you to customize the look and feel of your browser. Site authors and developers can create advanced content and applications using Mozilla’s open source platform and enhanced API.

New:

• Enhanced Tracking Protection (ETP) rolls out stronger privacy protections: The default standard setting for this feature now blocks third-party tracking cookies and cryptominers. The optional strict setting blocks fingerprinters as well as the items blocked in the standard setting.
• The Block Autoplay feature is enhanced to give users the option to block any video that automatically starts playing, not just those that automatically play with sound.
• For our users in the US or using the en-US browser, we are shipping a new Ã?¢??New TabÃ?¢?? page experience that connects you to the best of PocketÃ?¢??s content.
• Support for the Web Authentication HmacSecret extension via Windows Hello now comes with this release, for versions of Windows 10 May 2019 or newer, enabling more passwordless experiences on the web.
• Support for receiving multiple video codecs with this release makes it easier for WebRTC conferencing services to mix video from different clients.

For our users on Windows 10, you�¢??ll see performance and UI improvements:

• Firefox will give Windows hints to appropriately set content process priority levels, meaning more processor time spent on the tasks you're actively working on, and less processor time spent on things in the background (with the exception of video and audio playback).
• For our existing Windows 10 users, you can easily find and launch Firefox from a shortcut on the Win10 taskbar.
• For our users on macOS, battery life and download UI are both improved:
• macOS users on dual-graphics-card machines (like MacBook Pro) will switch back to the low-power GPU more aggressively, saving battery life.
• Finder on macOS now displays download progress for files being downloaded.
• JIT support comes to ARM64 for improved performance of our JavaScript Optimizing JIT compiler.

Fixed:

• Various security fixes

Changed:

• As previously announced in the Plugin Roadmap for Firefox, the "Always Activate" option for Flash plugin content has been removed. Firefox will now always ask for user permission before activating Flash content on a website.
• With the deprecation of Adobe Flash Player, there is no longer a need to identify users on 32-bit version of the Firefox browser on 64-bit version operating systems reducing user agent fingerprinting factors providing greater level of privacy to our users as well as improving the experience of downloading other apps.
• Firefox no longer loads userChrome.css or userContent.css by default improving start-up performance. Users who wish to customize Firefox by using these files can set the toolkit.legacyUserProfileCustomizations.stylesheets preference to true to restore this ability.