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Mozilla published today the final build of the Firefox 120 web browser, slated for release on November 21st, 2023, so it’s time to take a closer look at the new features and improvements.
Firefox 120 introduces the ability for Ubuntu users using Firefox Snap to import browser data from the Chromium web browser when it’s installed as a Snap package, as well as a new “Website Privacy Preferences” feature in Privacy & Security settings that tells websites not to sell or share your data or to send a “Do Not Track” request.
Two other new privacy and security features have been added in Firefox 120, namely the ability to import TLS trust anchors (e.g., certificates) from the operating system root store in Privacy & Security > Certificates, and a new “Copy Link Without Site Tracking” context menu option if you want to copy a link without any tracking information.
The Picture-in-Picture feature has been improved in Firefox 120 with a new corner-snapping feature that can be activated when holding the Linux Shift key while moving the PiP window. Also, this release lets users use an added “devtools” feature to simulate browser tabs to be offline.
The long-promised Cookie Banner Blocker feature has been apparently finally added in Firefox 120 but only for users in Germany. This feature will automatically refuse cookies and dismiss annoying cookie banners on supported websites. The same goes for the URL Tracking Protection feature, which removes non-essential URL query parameters used for user tracking.
Last but not least, Firefox 120 continues to protect users’ online privacy by improving private windows and the ETP-Strict privacy configuration to enhance the Canvas APIs with Fingerprinting Protection.
For web developers, this new Firefox release enables WebAssembly GC by default to allow languages like Dart or Kotlin to run on Firefox, enables Early Hints Preconnect, adds a new User Activation API to allow JavaScript to check if the user currently is or has been active on a web page, and adds support for lh and rlh units to be parsed and computed correctly as lengths.
As mentioned before, Mozilla plans to officially release Firefox 120 to the stable channel for OTA users tomorrow, November 21st, but Linux users using the official binaries can download this release right now from Mozilla’s download server here.
Last updated 5 months ago
