Software

Firefox 152 understands 'Sssh!'

As Google continues crippling Chrome ad-blockers, it's a good time to try Firefox

Liam Proven
Published

Firefox 152 is now available for download, after no fewer than four minor point releases to its predecessor, last month’s Firefox 151. And quieting noisy tabs has never been easier.

It’s a good time to check out the Fox: recently, this patch to the Google Chromium codebase, continues closing the door to Manifest V2 extensions, as The Register warned you was coming early last year. As the W3C documents, the forthcoming Google Chrome 150 turns off the last workarounds available for full-power ad blockers, and Chrome 151 will nuke them altogether.

The Settings page in Firefox 152, with tab number 2, 'Home and Startup'
Firefox 152 revamps the Settings page, in the hope of making it clearer and easier

Firefox 152 revamps the layout of the Settings page. To be honest, we had no particular problems with this before, but it’s a good thing to make it easier to twiddle the knobs and dials that make Firefox arguably the most extensible and customizable web browser.

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The new version also understands that sometimes you just want it to shut up. When a tab (or, worse, multiple tabs) are playing audio, if you go to the address bar and type “mute” (or “sssh” or “hush”), then a new Quick Action button appears beneath it offering to immediately silence all tabs in all windows at once. For some streaming services, there are also improved media playback controls on the tab context menu, but we don’t use streaming much around these parts and weren’t able to test this.

If you admired the cleverness of the JPEG XL format as much as this Vulture , then we have glad tidings. Back in 2022, we reported that Google was dropping JPEG-XL support from Chromium and Chrome. Back in January, Mountain View changed track on this, and now, Firefox 152 has experimental JPEG XL support too.

Chrome's waning macOS support

Chrome 150, currently in beta, will also be the last version with support for macOS versions older than 13 “Ventura”. This vulture has been getting warnings on his iMac, which maxes out at macOS 12 “Monterey”. Although there’s nothing we really want in macOS 15 “Sequoia”, or even macOS 14 “Sonoma”, our hand is being forced. Very soon, we will have no choice but to use OCLP for an unsupported update.

If you don’t fancy trying this, then you should switch to Firefox. Chrome 150 is expected around the end of this month.

The functions for sending tabs to other devices, and for copying URLs for easier sharing, have been improved. There’s an optional new “Send Tab” toolbar button. You can also right-click on a tab button and get options to send it to a nominated device, or copy its URL for sharing. Better still, this also applies to groups of tabs: hold down Ctrl or Cmd, select several, and right-click any of them, and they’ll all be sent, or their URLs copied, in one action.

There are also multiple bug fixes, about 40 security fixes, and as always, some new features for developers. Speakers of Basque or Galician will welcome their inclusion in its translation répertoire.

Mozilla’s fast release cycle for Firefox is a minor irritation, yes. (Of course, there’s always the Extended Support Release channel, if you want to hop off the treadmill.) However, one interpretation of it – and the stream of bug-fix versions – is that Mozilla is working hard on Firefox, and in our view that’s good news.

A new source of information that the company has published with this version) is the new Firefox Roadmap, which has info about future planned changes. ®

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