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Firefox 66 Arrives With Autoplaying Blocked by Default, Smoother Scrolling, and Better Search (venturebeat.com)

Posted by msmash on from the browser-updates dept.

An anonymous reader writes: Mozilla today launched Firefox 66 for Windows, Mac, Linux, and Android. The release includes autoplaying content (audio and video) blocked by default, smoother scrolling, better search, revamped security warnings, WebAuthn support for Windows Hello, and improved extensions. The company says its main goal with this release is to reduce irritating experiences such as auto-playing videos, pop-ups, and page jumps. Firefox 66 for desktop is available for download now on Firefox.com, and all existing users should be able to upgrade to it automatically. The Android version is trickling out slowly on Google Play.

4 of 154 comments (clear)

  1. If Only Popup Layers Could be Destroyed by mssymrvn · · Score: 4, Informative

    The only true browser feature I want is to terminate all of the friggin' popup layers that harass for your email. In what way are these better/less intrusive than popup windows? No! I don't want to be on your mailing list.

    Chrome and Firefox devs: Please damn this blight to hell. It's on almost every site I visit and it's such a pain in the ass. Especially if you can't use to close them.

  2. Re:I'm so torn by Luthair · · Score: 4, Informative

    For one thing its not owned by a private Chinese equity firm with unknown motives.

  3. Design by DrYak · · Score: 4, Informative

    The problem stems from stupid designers that require animated backgrounds
    (Why? Whyyy?!!!!?!?!?)

    Using silent videos is still the most efficient way to do these.
    If you disable silent videos, the websites will usually try to fall-back to some *other* less-efficient animated format (e.g.: .GIF animated image) instead of stopping the animation.

    If designer didn't insist on such backgrounds, Firefox could still block all videos.
    Instead, we have to rely on this conditional block to avoid even *more* damage to your monthly internet cap.

    But at least, uBlock can take care of the advertisements (be it autoplaying videos or not) and at least on Firefox, that works even in the mobile version (unlike Chrome where only the desktop version gets uBlock)

    --
    "Sufficiently advanced satire is indistinguishable from reality." - [Tips: 1DrYakQDKCQ6y52z6QbnkxHXAocMZJE61o ]
  4. Re:Still autoplays silent video by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Informative

    I found settings here that allowed me to make the autoplay blocking work for muted videos as well.

    https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/Media/Autoplay_guide#Browser_configuration_options