Mozilla released Firefox 85 on January 26, 2021. This is the first major browser update in 2021. Mozilla continues to roll out new browser updates every month this year as it did in 2020. There were a few notable changes in Firefox 85 which I will cover in this Firefox Review.
Firstly, Firefox now protects you from super cookies which are a type of online tracker that can stay hidden, in your browser and track you online even after you’ve cleared your cookies.
By isolating super cookies Firefox prevents them from tracking your web browsing, from one site to the next. You can read more about it in this blog post.
Secondly, there were some small improvements, in Firefox Bookmarks. If you bookmark a webpage in Firefox, it adds it to the "Other Bookmarks" folder and will place this folder in the Bookmarks toolbar.
Many users didn’t like this when it was first implemented, so Mozilla has made an option available to hide it. You can right-click on it and uncheck "Show Other Bookmarks" to hide this in the future. Also, Firefox now remembers your preferred location for saved bookmarks.
Thirdly, in the Firefox Password Manager you now will notice this new option to remove all logins. This can come handy, especially if you want to delete all your logins at once.
And finally, Firefox 85 spells the end of support for Adobe Flash. As I had mentioned, in my previous Firefox update Firefox 85 onward will not include support for Adobe Flash. You can check this article from Mozilla to learn more about it.
So these were a few notable changes in Firefox 85. You can check the list of detailed changes in the Release Notes. In terms of the Browsermark Benchmark test results, the overall performance of Firefox declined slightly compared to the earlier version. On the other hand, Google Chrome has continued to outperform.
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.
