Mozilla makes Firefox 67 “faster than ever” by deprioritizing least commonly used features

Yesterday, Mozilla announced the release of Firefox 67. For this version, the main focus of the Mozilla community has been to make Firefox “faster than ever” and also bring more privacy controls to the users. The updates include deprioritizing least commonly used features, suspending unused tabs, feature for blocking fingerprinting and cryptomining, and more.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NzqJ09_cn28

New updates in Firefox 67

Performing tasks at an optimal time by deprioritizing least commonly used features

To make the browsing experience better, Mozilla identified the least commonly used features that could be delayed until the page is loaded. The updates include delaying setTimeout, a method used in JavaScript for timing events, to give more priority to executing scripts for things that users want to see first.

The idea of delaying setTimeout for certain features has helped make the main scripts of sites like Instagram, Amazon, and Google searches execute 40-80% faster. This boost in performance is also because the browser now scans for alternative style sheets once the page is loaded and loads the auto-fill module only if there is a form to complete.

Suspending unused tabs to prevent computer slow down

We are all guilty of opening a number of tabs, which eventually slows down our computers. With this release, Firefox will be able to identify whether your memory is less than 400 MB and suspend unused tabs. If you want to visit the web page again, you just need to click on the tab and it will be reloaded where you left off.

Fighting against online tracking by blocking known cryptominers and fingerprinters

Last year in August, Mozilla announced that it will be introducing a series of features in Firefox to prevent online tracking. Living up to that promise, it has introduced a new feature through which you can disable fingerprinting and cryptomining.

Browser fingerprinting refers to the technique of collecting various device-specific information through a web browser to build a device fingerprint for better identification. Cryptomining is the method of generating cryptocurrency by running a script in someone else’s PC, which leads to slowing down your computer and draining your battery.

To use this feature, navigate to Preferences| Privacy & Security| Content Blocking. Then select Custom and check “Cryptominers” and “Fingerprinters” so that they are both blocked. Another way for enabling this feature is by clicking on the “i” icon in the address bar and under Content Blocking click on the Custom gear at the right side.

Source: Mozilla

Private browsing gets the convenience of normal browsing

Private browsing prevents websites from tracking your online activity to some extent by automatically erasing your browsing information as soon as the session is over. Along with better online privacy, users will now be able to enjoy some of the convenience that you get in a typical Firefox experience. You will be able to access saved passwords and enable/disable your web extensions.

Along with these improved user-facing features, this release also comes with faster and reliable JavaScript debugging tools for web developers.

Visit the Mozilla Blog to know more in detail.

Mozilla’s updated policies will ban extensions with obfuscated code

Mozilla re-launches Project Things as WebThings, an open platform for monitoring and controlling devices

Mozilla introduces Pyodide, a Python data science stack compiled to WebAssembly