PRESS RELEASE
As the year comes to a close, we look back at what we’ve accomplished. As recently noted in the press, this year may be the mark of our privacy-renaissance. We’ve built additional privacy protections in the browser which included blocking third party tracking cookies and cryptomining by default and created an easy-to-view report which shows the trackers that follow you and collect your online browsing habits and interests. To date, we’ve blocked more than 1 Trillion tracking requests that attempt to follow you around the web! Privacy has always been part of our DNA. We’ve always believed our role is and has always been to help give people more control over their online lives.
Today, we’ve got something for everyone, for tech savvy folks who want to test-drive privacy-first features and products or those who love to multitask while on their desktop. We have a lot in store for the next year, and will continue to uphold our promise to create privacy-focused products and features. Before we roll anything out widely to consumers, we’ve still got some fine-tuning to do. So today we’re kicking off the next phase in our ongoing testing of our Firefox Private Network Beta, and the latest Firefox Preview app for Android powered by GeckoView. Although the year might be winding down, just like Santa’s elves, we’re working around the clock to deliver experiments and the latest versions of our Firefox browser for desktop and iOS.
Latest Firefox Private Network Beta test protects US users just in time for the holidays
In September, we introduced the beta release of our Firefox Private Network (FPN), an extension which provides a secure, encrypted path to the web to protect your connection and personal information when you use the Firefox browser. Since then, we’ve received feedback from our beta testers on how they’re using FPN, its protections, and we learned about websites that weren’t compatible as well as connection issues. This allowed us to quickly identify and fix bugs, and ensure a stable product.
As we continue our beta testing, we are considering various ways to bring additional privacy protections to our users. Today we’re announcing an additional beta test for US-based Firefox account users who didn’t get a chance to get in the initial group, and are interested in testing FPN. Please find more information in this blog post. We’re working on bringing FPN to additional regions and will keep you updated about this process on our blogs.
Attention mobile beta testers: latest Firefox Preview Beta release now available
This past summer we introduced Firefox Preview Beta, a publicly available test version of our Firefox browser for Android powered by GeckoView, Mozilla’s own high-performance mobile browser engine. It allows us to deliver a better, faster and more private online experience for Android users. Today, we have an update on our progress, including new features we’ve added since its initial beta release in June. [SEE BELOW]
Picture-in-Picture available in today’s Firefox browser release
Let’s face it, we’re all guilty of multi-tasking whether it’s checking email in a meeting or online shopping and watching product videos before we press the buy button. We all have busy lives and want to get the most out of every minute. In today’s Firefox release we’re rolling out Picture-in-Picture available in all video sites.
Picture-in-Picture allows a video to be contained in a separate and small window, and still be viewable whether you switch from tab-to-tab or outside the Firefox browser. To see if Picture-in-Picture is available to you, hover your mouse over the video to see a small blue "Picture in Picture" option. Once you click the option, the video will pop into its own and will always stay as the top window, allowing you to continue to watch the video even if you switch tabs. Currently, Picture-in-Picture will only be available on Windows OS. It will be available to MacOS and Linux in our next browser release in January 2020.
To see what else is new or what we’ve changed in today’s desktop and iOS release, you can check out our release notes.
