Mozilla is currently rolling out Firefox version 67 on Windows, macOS and Linux. And the team is detailing a few changes in a blog post. With today’s new version, users should expect better performances across the board.
Firefox is now better at loading essential content first and delaying non-essential scripts, not loading the auto-fill module if there’s no form on the page, etc.
Mobile web browsers usually clear idle tabs from memory so you get better performance when you’re doing something else. That’s why you sometimes have to reload the page when you switch to an old tab. Desktop browsers are now doing the same thing, including Firefox. If your memory falls below 400MB, some old tabs will get suspended.
If you have a bunch of add-ons and themes, Firefox is now faster to start when you quit and relaunch your browser. Finally, AV1 videos should perform better, thanks to dav1d, a new decoder from the VideoLAN, VLC and FFmpeg communities.
On the privacy front, Firefox 67 is adding cryptomining and fingerprinting blocks. Once again, the team is partnering with Disconnect to include lists of rules and domain names that prevent your browser from loading disingenuous content.
Cryptomining and fingerprinting blocks are disabled by default — at least for now. But you can activate them in a couple of clicks in the browser settings under “Privacy & Security.”
When it comes to private browsing, Firefox now lets you enable or disable some add-ons during private sessions. You also can save in your browser passwords from a private tab.
Finally, Windows users with an Nvidia GPU will now benefit from WebRender, a GPU-based rendering engine for web content written in Rust. That represents a small subset of the user base, but I’m sure Firefox plans to roll it out to more users in the future.