Mozilla has decided that Firefox Send, its encrypted file transferring service, won't be returning. The reason for this decision is the same reason that compelled Mozilla to take the service offline in recent months: some users were taking advantage of Send to ship around malware and phishing attacks. In addition, Mozilla has also made a big announcement about its Firefox Notes product.
There's a version of Firefox out there that'll close your old tabs automatically. Years after the tab nightmare began, we're finally at a place in this world where we're given the option to see old tabs close without our assistance. This option appears on Firefox 81 for Android, and it'll be on your Android smartphone in the very near future.
A "completely overhauled" version of Firefox for Android was released today. This version of the web browser takes a revitalized approach to the web for mobile users, including a movable URL bar, faster speeds, and themes. Users will be able to access this app in Germany, France, and the United Kingdom first, starting today on August 25, 2020, while the USA will have a release date of August 27, 2020.
All companies, no matter the size, have been hit hard by the COVID-19 pandemic. Of course, smaller companies and organizations have had a more difficult time adjusting and coping compared to those with more resources to spare. Although not exactly tiny, the makers of the popular Firefox web browser is dwarfed by the giant that is Google and was already struggling to find stable revenue streams even before the coronavirus hit the world. Now Mozilla Corporation, the for-profit subsidiary of the Mozilla Foundation, is announcing a "significant restructuring", including letting go of 250 people.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Firefox Private Network, the company's subscription VPN service that is still stuck in private beta, has been updated with support for its own Android app. This expands the software support from Windows 10 and ChromeOS, though apps still aren't available for macOS, iOS, or Linux. The service isn't free, but it is quite inexpensive...assuming you can get an invite to sign up for the service, that is.
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.
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.
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.