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Despite being next to Google Chrome in terms of popularity, the recent months may not have been so kind to Firefox and owner Mozilla in terms of profitability and adoption. The non-profit organization continues to look for additional sources of revenue, sometimes eliciting backlash from its community, while Firefox's Android app is still in the middle of being rewritten from the ground up. That's not even considering the rather needlessly numerous versions of Firefox on the Google Play Store, something that is finally getting fixed by dropping at least two out of four or five Firefox apps on Android.

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We do a lot of things on the Internet and, these days, we do a whole lot more. For many people, that basically means communicating with others and browsing the Web. While the web browser itself has become the home for much of that, one part of it has actually become the unsung hero of the Web experience. That's why Mozilla is giving Firefox's search bar some much-needed attention to make it easier to search for things, even pages you may have forgotten are already opened.

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Ads have become a nuisance on the web, forcing both users and even browser makers to take heavy-handed solutions to fix that problem. More often than not, these involve blocking ads and third-party tracking cookies that, unfortunately, also deprive legit sites of a source of income. While Google is working on making well-behaved ads more trustworthy, Firefox maker Mozilla is taking a different approach and has partnered with Scroll to offer an ad-free experience but at a small price.

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This morning Mozilla released Firefox Preview 4.0, AKA early peeks at fun features for the forward-thinking individual. The Firefox Preview download for version 4.0 seems right up on the edge of pushing into the general release - not that the average user would know the difference. There are so many Firefox browser editions out now that you'd be excused if you just tapped them all and started thrashing about.

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Today in the USA, Mozilla updated Firefox for security and privacy purposes. They did this with DNS over HTTPS (DoH), a system which encrypts the interactions between computers and servers when they connect via the Internet. Because of the way insecure DNS works, "lookups" of servers done by your computer when connected to the internet are vulnerable to malicious agents. DoH stops all that business.

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Mozilla, the non-profit organization behind Firefox, seems to always be reinventing itself. It has tried numerous times to create new revenue sources, changed a classic logo, and even introduce paid features and services. It has also recently reinvented its browser for Android, almost throwing away many of the conventions and features that users have become accustomed to over the years. Perhaps unsurprisingly, that also includes add-ons of which only a handful will work with the new Android version of the browser when it launches.

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The Web as a whole has shunned the kinds of ads that pop up in your face but, unfortunately, there are some popups that may be critical to protecting the user. These usually involve asking the user's permission to use cookies or send them notifications. Of these two, the latter is actually less critical considering almost all users either ignore the request or say "No" outright. Fortunately, browser makers have finally taken notice and have implemented less annoying ways to ask users' permission.

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Given the number of things they do on the Web and the number of news regarding hacks and scams, you'd think people would be more careful about their online activities. They would if not for the sometimes complicated process of ensuring that no one is watching you. That's why browser makers are bending over backward to make it easier for their users to protect their privacy, sometimes just by flicking a switch. For Mozilla, that goes beyond more powerful Do Not Track features in firefox and right into VPN territory, which is what its Firefox Private Network or FPN wants to offer to the next batch of beta testers.

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Scams have been in existence from the earliest days of human civilization but technology and the Internet have given less conscientious agents a broader and longer reach than ever before. Such scams cove a wide variety of techniques and consequences, ranging from the annoying to the destructive. A new breed of scams is now starting to go around affecting Firefox users that, while not entirely destructive, may appear so legitimate that it will scare users into some harmful reaction.

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Earlier this year, Mozilla revealed that it will be tackling the issue of annoying notification permission prompts that appear on many websites as soon as they load. In an update on the matter published on Monday, Mozilla detailed the results of its experiment on how best to deal with these notifications and explained how it will change its browser's way of handling them starting with a future version of the software.

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Browser makers are implementing features that prevent sites from tracking users through various technologies, particularly encryption in HTTPS and TLS. Hackers of the dark kind, however, love to play this game of cat and mouse with security experts and software developers. A particularly notorious group hailing from Russia is proving that by turning the tables on browser makers. They are using the very same technologies Chrome and Firefox use for secure browsing, these hackers are modifying these web browsers on the fly to keep tabs on users and circumvent those privacy features.

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Earlier this year, Mozilla formally retired its Test Pilot program and graduated some of those tests into features for the Firefox browser. At that time, it seemed that Mozilla had learned all that it could from the program. Surprisingly, the nonprofit organization has suddenly come out with a new test pilot that ties into Mozilla's thrust in protecting users' privacy.

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