Mozilla Releases Firefox 90

Mozilla Firefox 90 supports background updating, HTTPS-only exceptions, Print to PDF improvements, and private browsing improvements.

Here’s a rundown of the new features and changes.

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Background updating. This Windows-only feature checks for, downloads, and installs updates in the background automatically when Firefox is not running. By default, it will check for updates every 7 hours. But it’s rolling out gradually, so you may not see it immediately. And once the feature does arrive, you need to enable it by navigating to the Firefox menu > Settings > General > Firefox Updates and selecting Automatically install updates (recommended). Then, check the box next to “When Firefox is not running to enable or disable the feature.” Check out this post if you want to proactively enable this feature before it’s available in your Firefox.

HTTPS-Only exceptions. Mozilla added HTTPS-Only mode to Firefox with version 83, which is undeniably useful. But in version 90, you can now add exceptions to disable this feature for particular websites that won’t work properly in HTTPS.

Print to PDF improvements. Print to PDF now produces clickable hyperlinks.

SmartBlock 2.0. Firefox 90 includes SmartBlock 2.0, the latest version of Mozilla’s advanced tracker blocking feature in Firefox Private Browsing and Strict Mode. SmartBlock 2.0 adds support for third-party Facebook login buttons while continuing to block Facebook tracking scripts.

There are also various security fixes in Firefox 90 and a few changes related to opening images in new tabs and the software-based WebRender, and FTP support was removed from the browser. You can download Firefox 90 from the Firefox website.

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Conversation 13 comments

  • buzzmodo

    13 July, 2021 - 5:43 pm

    <p>When I tried to download 90, all I got was 89, which was already installed…</p>

    • wright_is

      Premium Member
      14 July, 2021 - 4:57 am

      <p>Mine upgraded to 90, when I started it this morning.</p>

    • buzzmodo

      14 July, 2021 - 3:25 pm

      <p>Just forced the update to 90, and seems to be working fine! </p><p><br></p>

  • jimchamplin

    Premium Member
    13 July, 2021 - 6:14 pm

    <p>Did they fix the regression bug where FTP support is gone?</p>

    • F4IL

      13 July, 2021 - 7:48 pm

      <p>I am not sure they’ll be <em>fixing</em> that :)</p>

      • jimchamplin

        Premium Member
        13 July, 2021 - 11:09 pm

        <p>I’m still looking for an application to fix the issue. Any suggestions?</p>

        • F4IL

          14 July, 2021 - 9:59 am

          <p>On desktops I just use filezilla which is open source and cross-platform. You certainly give up the convenience of doing it all in the browser but it works.</p>

    • codymesh

      14 July, 2021 - 7:37 am

      <p>this is not a bug. FTP support is being removed from Firefox.</p>

  • brettscoast

    Premium Member
    13 July, 2021 - 8:36 pm

    <p>Thanks for the update. When Firefox first appeared back in 2002 I thought this thing rocked. I now see the worldwide usage of the Firefox browser is below that of Microsoft Edge in the low 3% range, quite an incredible rise and fall which is a shame.</p>

    • retcable

      Premium Member
      14 July, 2021 - 7:05 am

      <p>It truly is a shame. I have always been a huge Firefox fan and continue to use it as my default browser. My main reason for doing so is that it contains a bookmark sidebar function built INTO the browser, that supports favicons and all sorts of other functions. No need to install some tricky to configure extension at all, it just works. </p>

    • wright_is

      Premium Member
      14 July, 2021 - 8:59 am

      <p>It was also the number one choice for privacy, until recently. Brave has now grabbed that title.</p><p><br></p><p>On Android, it started having issues with password managers – it needed Android legacy support, which was partially broken and it just didn’t work properly. That was when I switched to Brave.</p>

      • sharps

        Premium Member
        15 July, 2021 - 8:24 am

        <p>Brave is decent.</p><p>Firefox does uBO, vertical tabs (through extensions), and the ui better. </p><p>It’s also nice to know you can trust extensions that have the recommended flag. </p><p>Also on trust, I still feel uncomfortable with the whole brave ad / crypto thing. I get what they are trying to do it just feels weird.</p><p><br></p><p>As much hate as I have seen, I also like the new updated UI (No pitchforks please ;).</p>

  • lightbody

    15 July, 2021 - 5:30 am

    <p>The main USP for Firefox for me just now, is the Facebook "fence" plugin. The only place I use Facebook is on Firefox for this reason.</p><p><br></p><p>The world without Firefox would be a sad place, I do hope it survives. </p>

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