Mozilla has been on a roll with Firefox recently, beginning with its Quantum overhaul in November and following with further performance tweaks since. For its latest update, Firefox 59, the changes included aren't quite as drastic, but Mozilla has managed to throw in some further performance gains and additional little features that could come in handy.
Though November's Quantum update was packed with speed improvements of its own, Mozilla says that Firefox 59 should sport faster page load times, particularly for content on the Firefox home page. Aside from the smaller tweaks included in this update, however, Mozilla has included some new annotation and re-cropping features for Firefox screenshots. And if you're sick of websites asking if they can send you notifications, the latest update includes a settings option to block those requests.
Here's a look at all of what's new in Firefox 59:
- Faster load times for content on the Firefox Home page
- Faster page load times by loading either from the networked cache or the cache on the user's hard drive (Race Cache With Network)
- Improved graphics rendering using Off-Main-Thread Painting (OMTP) for Mac users (OMTP for Windows and Linux was released in Firefox 58)
- Drag-and-drop to rearrange Top Sites on the Firefox Home page, and customize new windows and tabs in other ways
- Added features for Firefox Screenshots:
- Basic annotation lets the user draw on and highlight saved screenshots
- Recropping to change the viewable area of saved screenshots
- Added support for W3C specs for pointer events and improved platform integration with added device support for mouse, pen, and touch screen pointer input
- Added the Ecosia search engine as an option for German Firefox
- Added the Qwant search engine as an option for French Firefox
- Added settings in about:preferences to stop websites from asking to send notifications or access your device's camera, microphone, and location, while still allowing trusted websites to use these features
If you already use Firefox, you can grab the latest update now. If you're new to the browser, you can grab Firefox Quantum directly from Mozilla.
