In this Firefox Review, I cover some of the key changes in Firefox 86 and Firefox 87 which were released on February 23rd and March 23rd respectively.
I missed the Firefox 86 review, so I’m covering some of the notable changes in both these updates in this bog post and video review which you will find below.
So far, Mozilla has released three major browser updates in 2021. Mozilla will continue to roll out new Firefox browser updates on a monthly basis for the rest of this year, just like that did in 2020.
Now, let's dive into some of the key changes and improvements in the new Firefox updates.
First up, Total Cookie Protection which is part of Mozilla's Enhanced Tracking Protection to protect your privacy online. You’ll find Total Cookie Protection in STRICT MODE. It’s designed to isolate cookies (or tracking data) by website. So, each site gets its own cookie jar, essentially, preventing cookies from being used to track you from site to site.
Secondly, SmartBlock which is a tracker blocking mechanism for Firefox Private Browsing and Strict Mode. It's designed to intelligently fix up web pages that are broken by Firefox's tracking protection without compromising your privacy.
Thirdly, enhancement in the Picture-in-Picture Mode. PIP-mode allows you to pop, videos out, of their webpage so they are always floating on top enabling you can to watch while continuing to browse.
Firefox now supports simultaneously opening and watching multiple videos, in Picture-in-Picture and this is great (for example) if you’re watching several games.
And lastly, improvement in the Print Functionality. If you want to print (CTR+P) a web page, you'll notice a cleaner design and better integration, with your computer's printer settings.
So these were some of the notable changes in Firefox 86 and Firefox 87. You can check the list of detailed changes in the Release Notes. In terms of the Browsermark Benchmark test results, I was not able to run the browser test successfully because I experienced some issues with my computer. But, I’m pretty sure that Google Chrome continues to outperform Firefox overall.
CREDITS: Browser Benchmark Tests Performed Using Browsermark from Basemark | Firefox information and logos used under Creative Commons License Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported (CC BY-SA 3.0) | Microsoft, Windows, and the Windows logo are trademarks, or registered trademarks of Microsoft Corporation in the United States and/or other countries | Google and the Google logo are registered trademarks of Google Inc., used with permission | Images and graphics used are public domain via Pixabay unless otherwise mentioned | Other names may be trademarks of their respective owners.