Firefox 65 Arrives With Content Blocking Controls, and Support for WebP and AV1 (venturebeat.com)

Firefox 65, the latest version of Mozilla's web browser, is now available for Windows, Mac, Linux, and Android platforms. The release brings simplified Content Blocking controls for Enhanced Tracking Protection, support for WebP image support with the Windows client getting an additional feature: support for AV1 format. From a report: Across all platforms, Firefox can now handle Google's WebP image format. WebP supports both lossy and lossless compression and promises the same image quality as existing formats at smaller file sizes. Firefox 65 for desktop brings redesigned controls for the Content Blocking section to let users choose their desired level of privacy protection. You can access it by either clicking on the small "i" icon in the address bar and clicking on the gear on the right side under Content Blocking or by going to Preferences, Privacy & Security, and then Content Blocking.

Next, Firefox now supports AV1, the royalty-free video codec developed by the Alliance for Open Media. AV1 improves compression efficiency by more than 30 percent over the codec VP9, which it is meant to succeed. Lastly, Firefox's new Task Manager page (just navigate to about:performance or find it under "Other" in the main menu) is complete. Introduced in Firefox 64, Task Manager now reports memory usage for tabs and add-ons.

Comments

Content Blocking, Lets just keep NoScript

[oldgraybeard]

Not sure how I feel about this. I tend to resist Firefox updates because I don't want the new crap! The problem is, I would like security updates! Wish we could get security updates separated from features I never asked for and don't really give a rats ass about.

Just my 2 cents ;)

Re:Content Blocking, Lets just keep NoScript

[Anonymous Coward]

Sure, it's called the ESR version.

Yes, it misses the point of Firefox.

[Anonymous Coward]

The original point of Phoenix over Mozilla(/Seamonkey) was that of a microkernel: 1. Include only what is absolutely necessary, and 2. make extending it as easy as possible.

But the idea was communicated badly. Very badly. (Although not knowingly.)

It was never meant to be used in its bare state, but adapted to your needs.
(Ok, it was never perfectly minimalist.)

But users installed it, and never got told that extending/adapting it is a necessary step to obtain a full browser. Nor were they interested in the hassle.
(A few good presets for add-on collections, chosen at installation, would have fixed that, but add-on collections did not even exist back then.)

So to compensate, more and more features crept into Firefox itself.
Even during Firefox 2.x times, jokes about adding a kitchen sink existed. (See: about:kitchensink)

Then, add-ons started to become so malicious, that some people started demanding a better add-on framework.

Which, sadly, culminated in copying Chrome's utterly crippled joke of extensibility interface.

And now many things have to go into the main browser, because they are starting to become impossible via add-ons.
Especially with the current anxiety-based obsessive-compulsive minimalism fad, where new versions often announce the removal of essential (e.g. add-on API) features. (Yes, at this point, it starts becoming a contradicting cognitive dissonance.)

IMHO, it's long time, to break apart the conept of a browser. Into a clean hypertext viewer, a virtual machine, a networking service, and for everything possible, falling back to already existing OS functionality, instead of indulging in the inner-platform effect.
Then add-ons merely become small tools and services again, distributed like any other program package that follows the Unix philosophy.

Re:Yes, it misses the point of Firefox.

[MinaInerz]

Firefox's WebExtension API is a considerable superset of what Chrome provides, and offers much of the power of what old extensions could but without the risks.

Previous add-ons could essentially do anything they wanted to your computer and the spaghetti code required to support them made it difficult to speed up the Gecko engine and lower the resources that it used.

The last free browser

[110010001000]

Once Google starts stopping adblocking in Chromium, Firefox will be the last browser to allow the blocking of advertising and related malware. It is only a matter of time until Google, Microsoft, Apple, etc closes the adblock loophole.

Re:The last free browser

[fred6666]

If you're running an iPhone or iPad, you do so at the behest of Apple. They control which browers you're allowed to use. Presently there are a few choices, but that could change at any moment.

All "browsers" on iOS are forced by Apple to use Safari as the rendering engine. Basically, alternatives browsers are themes on Safari

Even harder to compile from source?

[ReneR]

Let me guess, they found new creative ways to make it even harder to build from source? https://www.youtube.com/watch?...