The latest Firefox is here with some handy changes – most of which differ depending on what OS and type of CPU you run it on.
We suspect that the most visible feature in Firefox 147 is improved Picture-in-Picture video playback. Now it can be triggered automatically when a tab is sent into the background.
PIP video appeared some years ago in Firefox 71 on Windows and Firefox 72 on Linux and macOS. The Reg FOSS desk just turns it off as we are not big fans of internet video, and videos that follow you as you move away from the page hosting them are the absolute last thing we want. Still, some folks will like this – including Daniele Ferla, who developed and contributed the code.
The other thing we suspect will benefit everyone on all platforms, at least occasionally, is that the Tabs page of the Settings screen has been reorganized, and now the various preferences that you can adjust there are categorized as Opening, Interaction, and Closing.
For Mac types with Apple Silicon ARM64 processors, this release has improved support for the cross-platform WebGPU standard, which first appeared six months ago in Firefox 141. WebGPU, which originated at Apple about nine years ago, lets apps running inside a web page – technically, inside an HTML5 <canvas></canvas> element – use hardware-accelerated 3D via backends such as Vulkan, Metal, or Direct3D, and it's intended as a replacement for the older WebGL standard.
PC folks aren't neglected either. Users with AMD GPUs now get zero-copy hardware-assisted video playback, bringing Firefox's AMD GPU support up to par with that for Intel and Nvidia GPUs. On Linux, Firefox now supports the XDG Base Directory Specification. Among other bug fixes, including sharper image rendering for those using Mutter on GNOME, there are multiple security fixes too.
Support for Google's Safe Browsing standard now covers version 5 of the spec, including the new Local List mode. If you have Firefox's Enhanced Tracking Protection set to Strict, this now restricts local device access as well as the public internet – although this is being rolled out gradually, so don't panic if you don't see it yet.
Back in August, we reported that some users were reporting their Firefox browser was scoffing CPU power, and we told you how to disable the new AI features in the most thorough way: go to the hidden settings screen by entering a URL of about:config and search for browser.ml. We turned off absolutely all the options we could find, and that seemed to silence the automatic plagiarism machine. We've seen reports of people finding these settings mysteriously getting re-enabled when they update Firefox. It hasn't happened to us, but you might want to check anyway.
As usual, there is also a detailed doc describing what's new for developers. Mozilla publishes full system requirements, but nothing looks different there: you need Windows 10 or macOS 10.15, or of course more recent versions, and a fairly recent Linux.
A new version of Thunderbird will be along to match soon, although as we write, we're not being offered an update yet – but the release notes are already available. We don't see any exciting changes here – in fact, only two things are listed under "What's new" – a Show Full Path option and optional folder-name localization. ®
Source: The register