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Firefox 104 Released with Tweaks to Reduce Battery Usage When Idle
As sure as the sun rises and sets, so a new version of the Mozilla Firefox web browser
emerges every four weeks.
And lo, Firefox 104 is ready for release.
Before we look at what’s new, a quick word to those of you hoping to hear that Firefox’s
new Linux touchpad gestures are enabled out-of-the-box: they’re now.
But, as in Firefox 103, you can enable the Wayland-compatible feature yourself via the
about:config section.
Usual caveats apply.
On to what is included in Firefox 104…
If there’s a “headline” change to be found in this release it’s that performance
of the main Firefox UI itself is now “throttled” when the browser is minimised or obscured,
in much the same way background tabs are.
This, Mozilla devs say, should help to improve battery usage of the browser when running
on laptops and similar.
Mozilla say Firefox 104 supports subtitles for content from Disney+ when played in Picture-in-Picture
mode.
As I don’t subscribe to Disney+ (though the reviews for Prey do have me tempted) I
can’t capture a screenshot of this in action, but hey: I trust it’s there!
Subtitles are said to be available in PIP mode if watching video served through video.js.
This online video player is popular with many online publications including tech-culture
site Mashable.
Firefox 104 intros support the scroll-snap-stop (which will please many web-devs); and Mozilla
say the browser’s built-in profiler tool is now able to analyse power usage of a given
website …But only on Apple M1 and Windows 11 systems — grr!
Linux-specific fixes include a band-aid for an issue where the entire screen would apparently
freeze when moving tabs to another window; balm for an errant (and seemingly unreproducible)
bug where typing in a Google doc was delayed; and succor for unexpected ‘shimmering’
during a couple of specific CSS transforms.
Plus, as always, there are hundreds more bug fixes, performance improvements, and security
patches included.
There are, as ever, also telemetry tweaks so that Mozilla devs can learn more about
how we all use their browser.
Firefox 104 is free, open source software.
Windows and macOS users already using the browser will get the latest version as an
over-the-air update in the coming days.
Linux distro maintainers will also package the build and push it out via their go-to
medium shortly.
:: More ::
Firefox 104 Now Available With Minor Improvements
Mozilla is ready to ship Firefox 104.0 this morning as the latest incremental improvement
to this open-source, cross-platform web browser.
This four-week update to Firefox doesn't have any super exciting improvements but continues
with incrementally enhancing this open-source web browser.
Arguably most exciting with Firefox 104 is that the main user-interface itself will now
be throttled when minimized or occluded.
By throttling the Firefox UI itself -- similar to its background tabs handling -- when minimized
or behind other windows is that it should help with performance by lessening system
load and in turn enhancing battery life / power efficiency.
Firefox 104 also adds subtitles for Disney+ picture-in-picture mode, the PDF viewer now
supports text writing / drawing / signatures, and other minor changes.
On the developer front, Firefox 104 adds several new methods for easily finding the last matching
element or its index, the SVGStyleElement.disabled property can now be used to enable/disable
an SVG style element, and the Marionette minimizing/restoring of windows on Linux should be more stable
and faster.
:: More ::
Firefox 104: analyze a website's power usage and UI throttling
Firefox 104 Stable, Firefox 102.2 ESR and Firefox 91.13 ESR will be released later today.
The releases fix security issues and bugs in Firefox; Firefox 104 Stable includes a
handful of new features, including an option to analyze the power usage of specific websites.
All Firefox channels, including development channels, are updated whenever a new major
version of Firefox is released to the Stable channel.
Firefox Beta and Developer editions are updated to Firefox 105, and Firefox Nightly is updated
to Firefox 106.
Firefox for Android follows the Stable version's versioning, which means that it will be updated
to version 104 as well.
Executive Summary
Firefox 91.13 ESR is the last version of Firefox 91.
Firefox 91 installations will be upgraded to Firefox 102 ESR on September 20, 2022,
the next Firefox release day.
Firefox has a new power analyze tool in the Firefox profiler, which may be used to analyze
a website's power usage.
Firefox will throttle its UI automatically when it is minimized or occluded to improve
performance and battery usage.
Firefox 104 download and update
Firefox updates become available on the day of release.
Since we publish our release reviews early, they may not yet be available.
All Firefox installations may be upgraded via the browser's built-in updating system.
To check for updates, select Menu > Help > About Firefox.
Firefox displays the installed version on the page, and runs a check for updates.
Updates found will be downloaded and installed.
Direct downloads are also available, follow the links below to Mozilla's download website,
to download the new version of the browser.
Firefox Stable download Firefox Beta download
Nightly download Firefox ESR download
Firefox for Android on Google Play Firefox 104.0 new features and improvements
UI throttling
To improve the performance and battery of the device Firefox is run on, the browser
will throttle its user interface whenever it is minimized or not occluded.
The system works similarly to how background tabs are throttled by Firefox to limit battery
drain and improve performance of the browser and the system as a whole.
Power usage analysis
Firefox users on Apple M1 and Microsoft Windows 11 devices may now use the Firefox profiler
to analyze the power usage of a website.
Other changes and fixes Firefox's Picture-in-Picture mode supports
subtitles for Disney+ now.
The shortcut to paste unformatted text, Shift-CTRL-V on Windows and Shift-CMD-V on Mac, works in
plain text contexts now.
Bypassing HTTPS-Only error pages and then going back takes Firefox users back to the
originating site and not to the error page anymore.
The highlight color is preserved after "typing Enter in the mail composer of Yahoo Mail and
Outlook".
Developer
Firefox supports the methods Array.prototype.findLast(), Array.prototype.findLastIndex(), TypedArray.prototype.findLast(),
and TypedArray.prototype.findLastIndex() The property SVGStyleElement.disabled may
be used to disable or enable SVG style elements, and to check the state.
Enterprise changes Total Cookies protection may be controlled
with the Cookies policy.
Removed the security.insecure_field_warning.contextual.enabled preference (not in Firefox 102 ESR)
Added AddVersionPin policy, which prevents updates to newer Firefox versions than specified.
Added GoToIntranetSiteForSingleWordEntryInAddressBar policy, which forces direct Intranet site
navigation.
Known Issues
none listed.
Security updates / fixes Security updates are revealed after the official
release of the web browser.
You find the information published here after release.
Outlook
Firefox 105 will be released on September 20, 2022.
Firefox 102.2 ESR will also be released.
It will replace Firefox 91.x installations via Firefox's update system.
Thanks for watching,
I hope you enjoyed this video,
If you did hit that thumbs up button, it helps me to make good content for you, other then
that, I will see you in tomorrow's video, peace out.