Firefox 67 focuses on speed, while adding new privacy controls for cryptomining and fingerprinting

[onetheycallEric]

Forward-looking: As Mozilla aims to convince more users to make the switch from Chrome, Firefox 67 adds some welcome performance additions while strengthening its baked-in privacy protections. Firefox 67 will better conserve memory for multiple tabs, start up quicker, and add features for blocking malicious cryptomining scripts and digital fingerprinting.

With the release of Firefox 57 in 2017, Mozilla rebranded its open-source browser as Firefox Quantum and outlined ambitions to take the fight to market leader Google. Since then, Mozilla has steadily changed the look and feel of Firefox, and added functions such as Firefox Send, Facebook Container, and Firefox Monitor.

With Firefox 67, Mozilla continues to bisect privacy and performance, with a focus on the latter. Mozilla is pumping the brakes on less common features, choosing to identify areas in which the browser could operate quicker. The browser game is a cruel one; many internet denizens aren't concerned with which browser they use, but more so with how fast it is.

To that tune, Mozilla is promising to focus on important website code, with main scripts for Instagram, Amazon, and Google searches executing between 40 to 80 percent faster. Firefox will also now scan for alternate style sheets after a page load, and the auto-fill module won't load unless there is actually a form to fill.

Alongside those changes, Firefox will now suspend background tabs if it detects the system is approaching 400MB or less of memory. This is aimed at optimizing multi-tab performance, especially in systems without much free memory. Firefox will also startup faster for those who have customized their browser with extensions and add-ons.

There is also a faster AV1 video decoder, named "dav1d", which has been jointly developed by Mozilla, Microsoft, Amazon, and Google. For users running Windows 10 and an Nvidia graphics card, there is now support for the long promised WebRender.

Not to leave out privacy, Firefox can now block cryptocurrency mining scripts that leverage users' CPUs in the background. With that, digital fingerprinting can be blocked as well, as part of Mozilla's anti-tracking approach. You can learn more about all the new privacy and performance additions to Firefox 67 in Mozilla's blog post.

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https://www.techspot.com/news/80165-firefox-67-focuses-speed-while-adding-new-privacy.html

 

[SolidSneak]

The anti-bloat system seems interesting and may finally give me a reason to switch back from Chrome.

 

[Evernessince]

" digital fingerprinting can be blocked as well"

That's huge. Loving the privacy features Firefox has been getting.

 

[stewi0001]

I appreciate the effort they are putting into improving Firefox, and I will probably try it out again, but what do they get for people using their browser besides bragging rights?

 

[onetheycallEric]

I appreciate the effort they are putting into improving Firefox, and I will probably try it out again, but what do they get for people using their browser besides bragging rights?

Market share, which in itself confers a certain amount of benefits -- the most important being able to keep Google from acting in a domineering way. And that's not a shot at Google Chrome, but it needs that check. It's not good for one browser to have a strangle hold on the market.

 

[captaincranky]

I appreciate the effort they are putting into improving Firefox, and I will probably try it out again, but what do they get for people using their browser besides bragging rights?

Jobs and a paycheck, maybe?

 

[Plutoisaplanet]

WebRender is the biggest deal here as its target is to always render web pages at 60 FPS, something no browser maker can easily copy with higher resolution displays. WebRender’s purpose is to render web pages entirely on the GPU, which is obviously designed specifically for rendering graphics unlike the CPU.

Mozilla has plans to release it to more configurations besides Nvidia on Windows; they even have plans to port it to their web browsers on mobile, which could actually make Firefox faster than Chrome on Android. This latter part will take years though whereas I expect WebRender to be fully supported on Desktop platforms within a year.

I appreciate the effort they are putting into improving Firefox, and I will probably try it out again, but what do they get for people using their browser besides bragging rights?

They get sponsorships from search engines to make them their default and the amount can vary based on browser market share. It’s typically in the hundreds of millions per year.

 

[EClyde]

I like a lot about it.

 

[Alexxandre]

Peps not using Firefox, don't know what they are missing, check the link to see how my browser look and how this webpage is displayed on it, you don't have this level of customization in any other browser.

https://I.ibb.co/18bJstP/Flook.png

 

[slamscaper]

I've been a loyal Firefox fan since the XP days... I've always loved it. I still think it's always been the most secure browser, assuming you use noscript as well (best add-on ever). I keep Chrome on my system for those pesky websites that need it, but other than that I'm Firefox all the way.

 

[Dimitrios]

To be honest I use a lot of browsers with the electronics I own and I still love FIREFOX. Sadly this privacy and freedom with no ads and commercials will come to an end at some point though. Nothing last forever in the computer world. I have OCD and no patience and like clutter free websites. I dropped cable 99% of my life for about 5-7 years. It wasn't easy for the first year or two but it was the best thing and life is too short for commercials.

Why should people pay to watch commercials? It just blows my mind. Isn't every hour of TV filled with 40-50% of commercials??

 

[Babbel13]

I have Firefox as a backup browser. I find that Opera is much better and up to ten times faster when loading my 25 tabs after opening the browser. Version 67 would have to do something outstanding to make me switch back and I doubt it will.

 

[captaincranky]

....[ ].....Why should people pay to watch commercials? It just blows my mind. Isn't every hour of TV filled with 40-50% of commercials??

The average length of a one hour scripted drama on DVD is somewhere between 41 and 43 minutes. That comes out to about 30% commercial time at original broadcast. I agree though, those breaks seem omnipresent and endless.

I'd be curious to know if the networks are selling more ad time per hour for specials, season finales, or high cost per episode shows.

The advertisers have a trick or two up their sleeves too. They have shorter abbreviated versions of the same ad. When cost per second is high, they'll run the short one, which leaves space for more products in the same amount of air time

 

[Plutoisaplanet]

I have Firefox as a backup browser. I find that Opera is much better and up to ten times faster when loading my 25 tabs after opening the browser. Version 67 would have to do something outstanding to make me switch back and I doubt it will.

Browser loading times are definitely affected by this update (unused features are deprioritized to load for instance), but previously browser tabs wouldn’t be loaded when reopening them by opening the browser. It’s once you click them that they’d be loaded, saving a lot of time to start using your browser.

 

[lazer]

I really stopped using FF because they stopped a lot of the great legacy add-ons that I liked,

 

[Dimitrios]

There are replacements for most of the really good ones, you just have to look. Many of them are better than the originals.

Same here! That's the only draw back but I don't mind it, gotta cross your fingers trying to find the same or similar add-on but that happens maybe once a year or two and it only takes 5-10 mins to be back up and running without ads & commercials again.