Android Programming

Firefox 63.0 is released for desktop and Android, aiming to give users “greater control over technology that can track them on the web”

1 min read

Mozilla has today released Firefox 63.0 for desktop and Android, just over a month since the release of Firefox 62.0. The release brings a range of changes. Some of these are cosmetic, some improve the user experience, while others should improve life for developers.

There is no update for iOS, however – version 12.0 was released in June.

What’s new in Firefox 63.0 for desktop?

According to the release notes, the update should have significant performance gains by moving the build infrastructure on Windows to the Clang toolchain. There’s also been a small change, as the Firefox theme is now the same as the Windows 10 OS Dark and Light modes.

For Mac users, Firefox should be a little faster. One of the reasons for this is that WebGL power preferences allow applications to request lower power GPUs in multi-GPU systems. This essentially means that the browser should be using resources in a much more efficient manner.

Interestingly, Firefox also now has content blocking features for Mac users that will “offer users greater control over technology that can track them around the web.” This feature will allow users to decide when to block tracking technologies and when to allow it.

Read next: Is Mozilla the most progressive tech organization on the planet right now?

For developers, meanwhile, Firefox has not only had a small facelift. The team have also decided to enable the accessibility inspector by default. This indicates how assistive technologies are becoming more and more important for web users. It also highlights that web accessibility is now a problem to be tackled head on – not ignored.

What’s new in Firefox 63.0 for Android?

For Android users, Firefox has added support for picture-in-picture video and now uses notification channels.

Read more about the new features and fixes on the Mozilla website.

Richard Gall

Co-editor of the Packt Hub. Interested in politics, tech culture, and how software and business are changing each other.

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