Category: Firefox

The Mozilla team behind the Firefox browser has released version 131 stable. The ESR branches have received their own portion of update by reaching versions 115.16.0 and 128.3.0. Finally, Firefox 132 has entered beta testing. Here are the key changes in this Firefox 131 stable.

Austrian digital rights organization NOYB (None of Your Business) has filed a complaint with the Austrian data protection authority against Mozilla, accusing it of violating users' privacy. According to the organization, Mozilla activates a privacy feature in the Firefox browser without the explicit consent of users. This, according to them, is used to identify users' online activity.

Mozilla has extended the support of the previously released Firefox 115 ESR for another six months until March 2025. Thus, the support period for Firefox 115 will be not a year as usual, but a year and a half. At the same time, the company will support Firefox 115 in parallel with the new ESR branch Firefox 128.

Mozilla Firefox 130 is available in the stable branch. The new release boasts with the ability to translate a selected text on a web page with added support for more languages. The browser now includes a new section, "Firefox Labs", that allows enabling/disabling experimental features in the stable version of the app. Finally, there are some improvements here and there, and security fixes.

Google regularly pays other companies to be the default search engine, including Mozilla, the maker of the Firefox browser. For that, a US federal judge has ruled that such deals have a "significant effect" on maintaining Google's search monopoly, preventing other search engines from competing fairly and entrenching Google's dominance. Google is officially recognized as a monopolist with its search market share about 95%.

Firefox 129.0, a stable version, is now available with improvements to Reader View and HTTPS as the default protocol in the address bar for non-local sites. Mozilla has released installers and binaries browser for Windows, Linux, and macOS.

Firefox 130, which is currently in Nightly and is expected to be released on September 3, will be able to automatically open picture-in-picture when switching from the tab where the video is displayed. So if you were watching something, but switched the tab, the video will open in a flyout. After returning to the original tab with the video, the picture-in-picture mode will be automatically disabled.

Firefox 128 stable is now available for everyone. The release is notable for bringing with it an option to translate selection only, a new dialog to clear browsing data, JPEG-XL image support, and more.

Starting in Firefox 129, you can enable vertical tabs and free up vertical space. This actual on wide screen displays which are common these days. While several browsers on the market already offer such an option, it took Mozilla quite a long to implement vertical tabs. Despite having a number of extensions for the same in the own add-on store, Firefox's implementation is a core feature.

Mozilla has announced that they are experimenting with integrating a chatbot into Firefox. It uses advanced language models to communicate with users using the natural language. The company starts testing the new feature this week in nightly builds of Firefox.