Mozilla today released the latest version of its flagship web browser, Firefox 96, adding several new features and fixes.
New features include:
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Fixes include:
dftf
<p>Good for them, but I do wonder how much-longer we’ll see <em>Firefox </em>around.</p><p><br></p><p><em>StatCounter </em>says between Dec 2020 and December just-gone, it’s use-share went from 8.39% to 8.49% on desktop OSes. In the same period, <em>Edge</em>’s use went from 7.43% to 9.22%. And <em>Google Chrome </em>from 65.96% to 66.6%. (And oddly <em>Safari </em>10.43% down to 9.56% — wonder which browser macOS users are going to?)</p><p><br></p><p>On <em>smartphone </em>devices, <em>Chrome </em>owns 62.48% of the market; 26.48% by Safari; Samsung’s own <em>Internet</em> browser at 5.19% and <em>Firefox </em>is amongst the "everyone else" group with just 0.5%; beaten by <em>Opera </em>at 1.96%.</p><p><br></p><p>On tablet devices, it’s essentially a two-horse race between <em>Google Chrome </em>and <em>Safari; Firefox’s </em>share must be so-low, they don’t even count it separately. It just comes under "others".</p><p><br></p><p>I’m glad it’s still around as an alternative… but for how-much longer, I wonder?</p>
dftf
<p>Their market-share on desktop-based systems went up <strong>0.1% in a year</strong> — so by the end of 2030, it could increase a whole <strong>1%</strong>, if that trend were to continue. I’ve heard of "playing-the-long-game", but I seriously doubt most-people would agree that is good. By that same time, <em>Edge</em> is likely to be somewhere-around 15% market-share, I’d estimate (accounting for some slowdown).</p><p><br></p><p>And they have no-growth where it matters with the younger generations thesedays: smartphone and tablet devices.</p><p><br></p><p>Oh, and on your second point, don’t forget too that some Mozilla fans have been frustrated with some of the UI changes made in <em>Firefox</em>, and are also using derivaties. <em>Pale Moon, Waterfox, Sea Monkey, GNU IceCat, Basilisk </em>and <em>TenFourFox</em> to name just some.</p>
dftf
<p><em>"You think Firefox is more like Chrome than Edge is? On mobile?"</em></p><p><br></p><p>On <em>Android</em> it isn’t; but on <em>iOS</em>, like with <em>every </em>web-browser on that platform, it is <em>WebKit</em> at it’s heart then, as <em>Apple </em>do not permit any app to use any-other rendering-engine.</p><p><br></p><p><em>"Firefox supports […] background video playback"</em></p><p><br></p><p>On desktop <em>Edge</em>, you can play many embedded videos in "pop-out" mode by right-clicking on them, then choosing "picture in picture". For video-players that offer their own right-click menu, like on <em>YouTube</em>, you’ll need to right-click twice to get the <em>Edge </em>one. (I’m not-sure for sites that detect whether they are the "active tab" if the pop-out player will continue working once you switch-tab; frankly, I wish the API that lets sites know if they are in the background or not could be turned-off in all browsers).</p><p><br></p><p>On <em>Android</em>, use "split view" and you could have a video playing on the top half or quarter of the screen, while you continue to web-browse in the area below.</p><p><br></p><p><em>"Edge has adblocking"</em></p><p><br></p><p>Well, sort-of… the <em>Android </em>legacy version used to have integrated <em>AdBlock Plus </em>ad-blocking. But since the revised version, based on <em>Chromium</em>, it now uses the same mechanisms as the desktop versions, which won’t block all ads. Mostly just third-party originating ones.</p>
dftf
<p><em>"… the incessant Bing traps everywhere …"</em></p><p><br></p><p>Yeah, sadly this extends to <em>Android </em>also. If you have the <em>Outlook </em>app installed, you get an extra "Search with Bing" option added to the text-selection pop-up panel. No-idea why <em>Google </em>don’t add an option in the settings where users can control what apps can add to it…</p>