Firefox 84 Promises to Finally Enable WebRender by Default on Linux/X11

Firefox 84 WebRender

While some of you are still discovering the new features and improvements in Firefox 83, Mozilla is already working on the next major version of the popular and open-source web browser, Firefox 84, which promises to finally enable the WebRender feature by default on Linux.

Written in Rust, the WebRender feature in Firefox makes the entire web browser faster when surfing the Internet. While WebRender is known for being extremely fast, it also makes Firefox more stable and smoother.

Until now, Firefox shipped with WebRender disabled by default for Linux users, but that’s about to change with the upcoming release, Firefox 84. To enable WebRender in Linux, you had to access the about:config configuration page, search for the gfx.webrender.all setting, and set it to true.

WebRender wasn’t enabled on Linux until now because it may cause instability or other issues for some users, especially on Wayland where things are still experimental these days. With the upcoming Firefox 84 release, WebRender will apparently be enabled by default on Linux systems running on X11, not Wayland.

It also looks like Mozilla will enable WebRender on Firefox 84 for Linux platforms running the GNOME desktop environment. That’s a bit strange, but I believe it should also work well on other desktops that use the GTK technologies, such as MATE or Xfce if this is a GTK/Qt thing.

Besides that, Firefox 84 will be the final release to support Adobe’s controversial Flash Player plugin, which is set to reach end of life at the end of 2020. Future releases of the Firefox web browser, starting with version 85, won’t ship with Adobe Flash support, improving performance and security.

Also, Firefox 84 will load all of Mozilla’s trusted intermediate certificate authorities on new profiles in a single day, from Remote Settings, to avoid any security errors on misconfigured websites.

Firefox 84 is now available for public beta testing, but the first beta release doesn’t ship with WebRender enabled by default on Linux/X11/GNOME. Most probably the feature will be enabled in later releases or in the final release, which is expected in mid-December.

Last updated 3 years ago

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