Mozilla today announced the release of Firefox 100 for Windows, Mac, and Linux, adding new subtitles and captions features for Picture-in-Picture (PiP).
“Beginning with Firefox 1.0, we’ve continued to put our users first to develop and deliver on the features most important to them,” the Firefox team explains. “Our mission then—to build an internet open and accessible to all—still remains the same today. That’s why, nearly 99 releases later, we’re excited to introduce subtitles and captions to Firefox’s Picture-in-Picture (PiP).”
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Mozilla added the PiP feature to Firefox in 2019, letting users pop video playback out from the main browser window and into a standalone player. It later added Multiple Picture-in-Picture (multi-PiP) for multiple pop-out video players. And now it is adding support for subtitles and captions in Firefox’s PiP windows.
“The subtitles and captions feature in Picture-in-Picture is available on three major streaming sites—YouTube, Prime Video, and Netflix—plus all websites that support the emerging W3C standard called WebVTT (Web Video Text Track) format, such as Twitter and Coursera,” the firm explains. “It’s really as simple as turning on the subtitles or captions on the in-page video player of your favorite website, and they will appear in PiP when launched.”
dftf
<p>You could also use <em>Safari</em> (on <em>macOS</em>), <em>Chromium </em>(on <em>Linux</em>), <em>Edge</em> (on <em>Windows</em>), or <em>Brave, Opera</em> or <em>Vivaldi</em> on virtually-every platform. If you purely want to avoid <em>Google</em>, <em>Firefox</em> isn’t the only-answer thesedays…</p>
dftf
<p>Browser market-share stats for April 2022, from <em>StatCounter</em>:</p><p><strong>Desktop: </strong><em>Chrome</em> 66.6%; <em>Edge</em> 10.1%; <em>Safari</em> 9.6%; <em>Firefox</em> 7.9%</p><p><strong style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);">Tablet: </strong><em style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);">Chrome</em><span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"> 47.3%; </span><em style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);">Safari</em><span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"> 38.1%; </span><em style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);">Firefox</em><span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"> <1.45% (lumped-into the "other" group, no unique stats)</span></p><p><strong style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);">Mobile: </strong><em style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);">Chrome</em><span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"> 63.6%; </span><em style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);">Safari</em><span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"> 24.9%; </span><em style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);">Samsung Internet</em><span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"> 4.9%; </span><em style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);">Firefox</em><span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"> 0.5%</span></p><p><br></p><p><span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);">So on </span><em style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);">Mobile</em><span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"> and </span><em style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);">Tablet</em><span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);">, </span><em style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);">Firefox</em><span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"> barely-exists. And on desktop platforms (Windows, macOS, Linux, BSD) it’s only 0.09% higher than a year ago, on 7.78%, with a peak of 9.5% share in February this year.</span></p><p><br></p><p><span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);">After their search-deal finally ends with </span><em style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);">Google</em><span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);">, and assuming they don’t enter-into one with </span><em style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);">Bing</em><span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);">, as has been suggested, then I do-wonder what the future holds, given that the browser is their main product, and aside from </span><em style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);">Mozilla VPN</em><span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);">, what other sources of income do they have?</span></p>
dftf
<p>Remember that on <em>iOS</em>, as with all browsers, <em>Firefox</em> is essentially just <em>Safari</em> at it’s heart, as all browsers on <em>Apple’s </em>phone and tablet platforms have to use their <em>WebKit</em> engine. Only the browser interface and things like some of the sync-services differ.</p><p><br></p><p>I would guess (not an <em>Apple</em> device user here) that there are no extensions on the <em>iOS</em> version of <em>Firefox</em> as a result? (Though, on the <em>Android</em> version, a grand-total of <u>17</u> are offered there, so you’re not missing much!)</p>