How to Update Mozilla Firefox
Firefox is still in use today despite the fact that many older web browsers have been replaced by more recent versions. Despite having a smaller add-ons catalog than Chrome and a higher RAM utilization rate, Firefox has some impressive tricks up its sleeve.
At over two decades old, Mozilla Firefox is still a well-liked web browser that dominated the pre-Chrome period. In this Firefox review, we’ll demonstrate how this browser has done a good job of keeping up with contemporary features like having a library of add-ons, dependable privacy options, and a mobile version.
Key Learnings:
• Mozilla separates user behavior from identities, collecting less user data than Google.
• Trackers and fingerprinting operations will be automatically blocked by Firefox.
• Firefox’s add-on library contains more tools that can be added, although some of them occasionally have compatibility issues.
• Firefox’s speed is sufficient for daily use, although many competing browsers consume less RAM.
Since Firefox was introduced in 2002, the industry standards for internet browsers have undergone a significant transformation. Over the years, Mozilla made a number of significant design changes to Firefox in order to maintain its position in the market as competing programs faded away. In the review that follows, we’ll go into the specifics of the updated version of this vintage browser.
• Soft360 updated their assessment of Firefox and broadened it to include more aspects of the browser.
• Add-ons library • User-friendly
Cons:
• A few incompatibilities
• Heavy RAM use
Features
90% – Outstanding
Firefox When it became one of the first browsers to support add-ons, it revolutionized web browsing. Later, Google Chrome mastered the skill of adding its own substantial library of extensions to your browser, eventually dwarfing Firefox’s collection.
With Firefox’s extensive add-on library, you may increase your browser’s functionality.
Firefox supports the most popular types of add-ons including ad-blockers, password managers, productivity add-ons, and many other capabilities, while having less add-ons overall than Google Chrome.
System Sync
For a seamless online experience, sync your Firefox data across all of your devices.
By creating a Firefox account, users may sync their most crucial browser data across numerous devices. Only an email address is needed to create an account, and the process only takes a few minutes. Once you’ve logged in, you may store bookmarks, passwords, add-ons, and other types of information to your account that you can access from your other devices (see our article on how to backup Firefox bookmarks for more information).
Mozilla advises users in its knowledge base that synchronization data is not the same as backing it up; if you delete the browser without first syncing the data, it will be lost permanently.
Making a profile for each user is the best way to isolate user data on a shared computer. Firefox accounts can be used by two persons to access the same browser on the same computer and access their personalized settings while keeping them hidden from other users.
The more laborious alternative is to create different user accounts on the same installation without signing into your Firefox account. You can add, remove, and modify user profiles by starting the profile manager on your computer, as Mozilla explains in its knowledge base.
PDF Reader
No additional software is required to open PDF files in Firefox because it comes with a built-in PDF viewer. The Firefox viewer can be manually disabled and an alternative PDF viewer installed in its stead if you prefer.
The Firefox PDF viewer has a simple aesthetic and uses little screen real estate. A single horizontal bar with a few buttons for viewing the document sits below the URL bar and makes up the interface’s simple design. The “toggle sidebar” button, navigation arrows, and page count are all located in the top left.
The zoom controls are in the middle of the bar, and the buttons for printing, downloading, reading the page in full-screen mode, and opening the document in a new tab or window are all on the far right. A button that opens a menu with additional viewing choices, such as rotating the document and altering the spread layout, is located at the end of the toolbar.
Reading List Firefox’s reading list functionality allows iOS users to bookmark pages for offline reading. The reading list will assist you the next time you know you won’t have access to the internet by downloading the webpage in advance so you can read it when traveling by bus, aircraft, or other means without an online connection.
All of your devices will sync any new pages you add to your reading list. While the Pocket app allows users of PCs and Androids to save sites for offline viewing, the in-browser reading list feature is exclusive to iOS.
Menu Context
The context menu in Firefox includes the same standard functionality as those in most other browsers—saving a page, copying and pasting text, etc.—but it also offers a useful screenshot tool that Chrome lacked.
Don’t want to capture the entire page on camera? To accurately frame your image, use the built-in screenshot tool in Firefox.
Right-clicking anywhere on a website will enable the “capture screenshot” button in the context menu, which makes taking screenshots simple. You can use this snapshot function to take full-page screenshots and download them to your computer, or you can click on a specific element to screen capture just that portion of the page.
You can alter the selection box’s size and shape to zoom in on any area of the page for greater accuracy. A useful feature we didn’t find in many other browsers is this screenshot tool.
Firefox has built-in web development tools in the context menu.
In addition to its standard “inspect” function, Firefox also provides a “inspect accessibility properties” option. A developer tool for inspecting the accessibility attributes of any element on a webpage is the accessibility inspector. This button will display all of the webpage’s accessibility-related internal workings and open the accessibility panel of the standard inspect element panel.
gloomy tone
Use one of Firefox’s various themes, such as the bright or dark ones.
The final option is for users to personalize the default light theme by switching to a chic dark theme found under “add-ons and themes.” Firefox comes with a few additional light themes and a button that opens the add-ons library of Mozilla, where you can download more customized themes.
90% ease of use Excellent
There is a desktop version of Firefox as well as a client for mobile devices. Both versions share a similar interface that is basic and user-friendly and is based on Mozilla’s new Firefox Quantum engine.
You can see that Firefox’s desktop version is a straightforward browser with only a few buttons and controls surrounding the webpage. The basic search bar, bookmarks bar, and a few more options buttons are all located at the top.
The three horizontal bars that represent settings will open a more thorough menu of options that are otherwise neatly hidden from view when the menu is closed. Although Firefox isn’t based on Chromium, Chrome-like menus and an interface can be found there.
Firefox will automatically fill the address box with search recommendations as you enter based on your search history, bookmarks, search engine results, and other types of information. Enter Firefox’s settings to choose specifically what suggestions will show up in the address bar.
Users in the United States can choose to enable “contextual suggestions” in order to get localized search suggestions. Firefox will gather information about your city-level location to propose local search results as well as information about how you interact with the search suggestions. According to Firefox, it does not gather or share user data in order to provide these suggestions.
From the “new tab” page, go directly to an article, the search box, or a website you’ve already visited.
Firefox Tab Administration
The Google search bar sits immediately below the Firefox logo on the default “new tab” screen, which also includes a selection of websites from your search history and articles that Pocket recommends. The default search engine is Google, but you may manually change it in “options” > “search.”
When a window has more tabs open than it can display, navigation buttons will start to emerge next to your row of tabs. A button on the right will open a dropdown menu with all open tabs, and arrow buttons on the left and right will scroll through the off-screen tabs. If you have too many tabs open, you can search for specific tabs here.
As new tabs are added, existing tabs will stop getting smaller and will no longer scroll off the screen, keeping some content visible at all times. When compared to Chrome, which limits them to simply the favicon, this makes it slightly easier to recognize and click on each tab.
Firefox used to offer tab groups, but this feature has been deleted, so if you want to further customize your tab management, you’ll need to install an add-on.
The Pocket app for Firefox is built right into the browser.
With the help of Pocket, a bookmarking tool from Mozilla, users may store a variety of online materials, including articles, videos, and web pages, in a curated feed. You can alter the Pocket feed or disable it entirely.
Mobile
The address bar, menu button, and reader mode are at the top of the screen while the navigation controls are at the bottom of the screen in Firefox’s iOS and Android apps.
You can use the “request desktop site” function to access a desktop website on your phone if the mobile version of a website lacks the same capabilities as the desktop version.
70% – Decent performance
With the release of its Quantum version in 2017, Firefox saw its most significant change. The browser’s architecture and the engine that powers it had a major makeover in the Quantum update, which increased speed and decreased RAM usage.
We put Firefox, Chrome, Brave, Vivaldi, Opera, and Microsoft Edge through several speed tests in order to evaluate its performance. It came in last, with Chrome taking the top spot. Although it appears to be a slow browser, it only appears to be so on paper.
In normal use, Firefox is quick enough that its slightly slower performance is barely visible. To understand how it stacks up against other browsers, read our Firefox vs. Chrome and Opera vs. Firefox comparisons.
Speedometer Browser Runs per Minute Benchmark Test
Chrome 121\sBrave 102
Vivaldi 97.3 Mozilla Firefox 95.5 Opera 116.6
Benchmark Evaluation: Jetstream Browser Rating
Chrome 125.917\sBrave 116.936
Vivaldi 116.540 Mozilla Firefox 80.131 Opera 121.802
Test for comparison: Motion Mark Browser Score
Chrome 496.32\sBrave 444.67
145.93 Mozilla Firefox
Opera 373.27\sVivaldi 285.25
We observed that Firefox uses a large amount of system resources at once, even when only a few tabs are active and no addons are loaded. When running the same number of tabs, Firefox and Chrome used up nearly the same amount of memory, whereas Brave used up almost half as much RAM.
Security 90% – Outstanding
The majority of dangerous content may be blocked by Firefox’s basic security settings, but users can further protect their data by turning on additional measures.
To shield its users from trackers that monitor their online activities, Firefox uses malware prevention. Cross-site tracking cookies, fingerprinting, social media trackers, cryptocurrency miners, and any other type of tracker that is buried in web pages will all be automatically blocked by enhanced tracking security. The majority of harmful trackers and advertising are successfully blocked by Firefox without impairing website operation.
When you access a website over an unsecured connection, Firefox warns you with a red padlock icon and loads HTTP and HTTPS pages equally. Enabling HTTPS-only mode will force Firefox to load pages over HTTPS by default. Firefox will prohibit you from accessing the webpage if there is no HTTPS connection available unless you explicitly want to connect to the website using HTTP.
In Firefox, the HTTPS-only mode is not always active. Similar to Firefox’s password manager, this is a crucial security tool, but if it were turned on by default, all users would be better protected.
Firefox is a browser that gets updates automatically and has the option for manual updates as well.
Firefox by default updates itself. Firefox downloads updates as you use it and installs them the following time it is opened. You won’t have to worry about using an out-of-date version of Firefox because it releases security patches promptly when Mozilla finds flaws.
Ad-Blocking and Pop-Ups
Firefox automatically disables pop-up blocking, and when it does, a notification will appear below the address bar. The “options” button in the notification bar opens a menu with further pop-up controls, including the ability to allow or prohibit pop-ups for particular websites or disable the alerts.
Firefox has the option to add websites to the pop-up allowlist while blocking all other websites because some websites depend on pop-up functionality for some of their functions.
Although there are numerous ad blockers accessible in Firefox’s add-ons repository, advertising are not blocked by default in this browser. In fact, Mozilla has put up a list of the top five ad-blocking addons. Although there are many appropriate third-party add-ons for Firefox, these five have already been checked by the firm for malware.
Keyboard Manager
Every time you arrive at a website’s login page, a password prompt will show up. You can choose to save your login information in your browser so that it will automatically fill in the credentials field the next time you visit that website.
Keep in mind that your locally saved passwords are not by default secured with a master password if you have decided to store them locally rather than on a different password manager service. If you use a shared device or if it is lost or stolen, failing to set a master password might potentially allow someone else access to all of your accounts.
90% – Excellent Privacy
Mozilla’s data collection methods differ from Google’s in that they don’t focus on collecting and selling user data in order to provide targeted advertisements. A nonprofit corporation called Mozilla only gathers the data it requires for the continuous development of Firefox and does not provide it to advertisers (or buy your data from them).
Although it isn’t quite in our top rank for secure online browsers, Mozilla’s privacy policy makes it one of the finest web browsers for privacy-conscious users.
According to Mozilla’s documentation, Firefox relies on distribution agreements and partnerships for revenue rather than collecting your browsing and search history. The technical and interaction data that Firefox does gather about its users is linked to a random identifier rather than your name or email address.
Data Collection in Firefox
The technical information relates to information on the browser specifically and includes details about the operating systems that different installations are using as well as crash report information.
Information on how the browser is used makes up interaction data. Mozilla will gather information on user browsing habits, the number of tabs each user has open, how frequently an add-on is used, and other relevant details.
According to Mozilla, this type of data solely reflects how the browser was used and not the websites that the user visited. Despite all of this, some users will inevitably want to refuse data gathering, even if the data is small or anonymised.
If you fall into this category, you may prevent Mozilla from gathering telemetry data by turning it off in the settings’ “privacy and security” section.
Firefox does not associate your identity with the data it collects, but you can actively reject data collection in the “options” section.
Privacy-Aware Browsing
To prevent saving any or all of your history, use the private mode on your browser.
Firefox comes with a built-in private browsing mode that deletes your download history, download entries, cookies, search history, and cached data. To browse the internet without saving your history, press Ctrl+Shift+P to open a private window.
Instead of recording all or nothing, Firefox’s private mode gives users a variety of options. If you wish to keep your browsing history but delete your search and form history, you may choose which sorts of data the browser keeps and which it does not.
Firefox can also be set up to not save any data at all, even without the use of private windows. In every way except look, this is comparable to utilizing private windows by default.
Contrary to popular belief, private windows, incognito mode, and similar features are not privacy technologies that will allow you to remain anonymous online. Private windows merely don’t preserve browser data that would otherwise be captured; they won’t hide your IP address from your internet service provider or stop websites from collecting personal information about you.
Using a VPN is the greatest way to increase your online privacy. ExpressVPN is our top pick among all of our favorite VPN services. ExpressVPN will provide you piece of mind by hiding your identity from prying outsiders and is quick, safe, and simple to use. Read more in our comprehensive ExpressVPN review.
The Finding
Over the years, Firefox has endured rather well. The current version lacks as much user data collection while maintaining Chrome’s contemporary style and functionalities. Even though it’s an excellent privacy browser by default, each user has even more ability to tailor and strengthen their online privacy thanks to the extensive range of privacy controls.
Although Firefox’s add-on library is less than Chrome’s, there are still thousands of options available. Although Firefox isn’t always compatible with newer add-ons, it should still be a great option for your daily web activity unless you require a really specific feature that Firefox cannot allow.
Overall, Mozilla is a remarkable and dynamic browser that keeps evolving and getting better in the current internet era. Its feature-rich user interface and privacy safeguards exceed its flaws, and it still holds a lot of promise for further online browsing innovation.
What do you think of Firefox? Has it successfully adapted to current technologies, or do you believe its days are numbered? Do you believe that Google is more capable of protecting your privacy than Mozilla? Do you find its RAM utilization to be a deal-breaker? As always, thanks for reading and please let us know what you think in the comments section.
