Mozilla today launches version 100 of the Firefox browser, which began life as a viable alternative to Internet Explorer in 2004, before being eclipsed by Google Chrome. The latest version of Firefox arrives today for Windows, Mac, and Linux on desktop, as well as Android and iOS on mobile.
In its desktop version, Firefox 100 brings two main improvements in terms of usability. PiP (Picture-in-Picture), introduced in 2019, displays video in a separate window that persists independently of the browser, so users can switch between tabs and continue watching a video while they’re doing something else.
Firefox already supports multiple PiPs, and version 100 improves subtitles and closed captioning for that. Initially, subtitles and subtitles in PiP will be available on YouTube, Prime Video and Netflix, as well as online courses Coursera and Twitter, which support the WebMTB format. The Firefox 100 beta optimizes the size of scrollbars on Linux and Windows 11. Scrollbars are slimmer because scrollbars don’t take up space by default.
Linux users can change the size in system settings via about:preferences. Windows 11 users can configure the Firefox scroll bar in System Settings > Accessibility > Visual Effects > Always Show Scrollbars. To change scrollbars only on Firefox, use the preference widget.windows.overlay-scrollbars.enabled of about:config.
The last chance version for Firefox?
As a reminder, the origins of the Mozilla project go back to 1998, when Netscape made the code for Communicator 5.0 freely available and made it available on the Mozilla.org site. Before Firefox, Mozilla had already released the Mozilla 1.0 browser in 2002. A few months later, the foundation released the Phoenix browser, which was later renamed Firebird, before finally landing on Firefox.
Built on Mozilla’s Gecko engine, Firefox 1.0 was released in 2004 as an open-source alternative to Microsoft’s then-dominant proprietary Internet Explorer browser. The browser then promised to block pop-ups, integration of Google Search and other search services, tabs, add-ons, and more. Message received five out of five by the general public: in one year, Firefox had been downloaded more than 100 million times.
In 2004, Microsoft executives said Firefox was no threat to Internet Explorer’s dominance, even though it had beaten Microsoft’s in-house browser in 2011 in the European market.
In recent years, the number of workstations equipped with Firefox has decreased. In 2019, Mozilla’s browser had around 250 million monthly active users (MAUs), before dropping to 207 million monthly active users in April. In 2009, Firefox held 23.75% of the global browser market, but today it holds around 3%. Even less used than Microsoft Edge, it is now light years away from the market juggernaut, Google Chrome, which has 65% of the browser market share, according to Global Stats Statcounter.
Source: ZDNet.com