Mozilla releases Firefox 71 with tracking protection improvements and Picture in Picture video for Windows

Kareem Anderson

Firefox 69 is out and blocks third-party tracking cookies and cryptominers by default

Firefox version 71 has started rolling out to Windows, Mac, Android, Linux, and iOS users this week and with it comes new picture-in-picture support, enhanced tracking protection adjustments and additional password manager features.

Users can grab the latest version via Firefox.com or from their respective app stores on mobile.

For those interested in specifics, here is the full changelog for both desktop and mobile users, specifically iOS users as most development efforts on the Android side are catering toward the Firefox preview rather than older development path of Firefox proper:

  • Improvements to dark theming: Firefox for iOS will now allow users to automatically switch to a dark or light theme based on device settings. Users can also configure this setting manually.
  • Increased visibility for synced tabs: Users can now find their open tabs synced from other devices in the Your Library section of the Firefox home screen.
  • Visibility issues while dark theme is enabled.

For desktop:

  • Firefox now recognizes subdomains and will autofill domain logins from Lockwise.
  • Integrated breach alerts from Firefox Monitor are now available to users with screen readers.
  • Notifications when Firefox blocks cryptominers.
  • A running tally of blocked trackers in the protection panel accessed by clicking the address bar shield.
  • Picture-in-Picture video comes to Firefox for Windows. Select the blue icon from the right edge of a video to pop open a floating window so you can keep watching while working in other tabs.
  • Native MP3 decoding on Windows, Linux, macOS, and Android.
  • DevTools’ Network panel can now inspect WebSocket messages and automatically formats a variety of framework formats.
  • Console’s new multi-line editor mode provides an IDE-like experience that makes it convenient to iterate on longer code snippets.
  • The Network panel’s new resource blocking can simulate the impact of tracking protection, security, service outages, and bad connectivity for more robust testing.
  • Improvements to the website certificate viewer, with more features and more detailed information.
  • Improvements to the extensions downloads API for handling download failures.
  • Extension popup windows now include the extension name instead of its moz-extension:// url when using the windows.create API.
  • Extension-registered devtools panels now interact better with screen readers.
  • New kiosk mode functionality, which allows maximum screen space for customer-facing displays.
  • Various security fixes.
  • Configuration page (about:config) reimplemented in HTML.
  • Firefox will now ship with Catalan (Valencian) (ca-valencia), Tagalog (tl), and Triqui (trs).

Mozilla has road mapped the next Firefox release for January, putting its development and release cycles in a four-week timeframe for the foreseeable future.