If you’re a Firefox user-and there aren’t many of you- compared to the bulk of web browser users of Chrome and a few, increasingly, on Microsoft Edge. These Firefox updates will make your day.
The new version of Mozilla’s web browser, Firefox 94, has been launched and it comes with interesting new features for its users. Such as Site Isolation Technology which defends against compromised browser rendering processes and related security risks. Also, this new version protects you against new types of attacks from malicious sites and complying with Mozilla’s security principles.
How Site Isolation Works in Firefox
Site isolation is based on a new security architecture that extends the current protection mechanisms by separating (web) content and loading each site in its own operating system process.
This new security architecture allows Firefox to separate code coming from different sites and, in turn, defend against malicious sites trying to access sensitive information from other sites you are visiting.
More updates…
Among the changes, Firefox 94 also introduces a function to unload open tabs without closing them through the internal page “about: unloads”, the same as “chrome://discards” in Chromium derivatives. This is a feature that the browser already has by default and works automatically but will be useful for more experienced users and those who use a larger number of open tabs.
Other new features of Firefox 94 include improved WebGL support for Linux, support for low-power mode for full-screen video on sites like YouTube and Twitch, downloading and installing new versions of Firefox on Windows in the background, but without prompting to restart the browser.
Interface updates
The interface has also been changed, giving it a touch of color with: Colorways, a “vibrant color scheme available for a limited time”. Basically, these are color schemes that give life to the application.
Colorways will appear the first time Firefox is opened after its update, but all the themes that are displayed are available in their own section in the browser preferences. They are a way to draw attention to the customization possibilities and thus capture the interest of users.
Protection updates
The new model provides more reliable protection against Spectre attacks, reduces memory fragmentation and allows additional isolation of external script and iframe content and returns memory to the operating system more efficiently, minimizes the impact of garbage collection and page-intensive computation on other processes, increases the efficiency of load balancing between different CPU cores and improves stability (blocking the process processing the iframe will not trigger the main site and other tabs along).
Firefox 94 for Android
Version 94.0 for Android comes with a lot of new features. On this occasion, the changes focus on the home page and tab management, in addition to the typical bug fixes. This version is already arriving on Google Play (also available as APK), with several new features focused on productivity and reducing the mess of having a multitude of tabs open. The most obvious change is on the home page, the one that appears when you open a new tab.
So, the good news is that you can customize what items are displayed on the home page from the Firefox settings. This way, you choose whether you want your most visited favorite sites, “back to this tab”, recent bookmarks, and recent searches to be displayed. Although its innovative changes may not be apparent at first, Firefox 94 is an important release for most users of this browser that has recently lost a huge market share over the last decade.
