Mozilla launches Firefox 53 for users using Windows, Mac, Linux, and Android. The version includes numerous updates and improvements, as well as various security fixes.
In its part to build Project Quantum, a next-generation browser engine, Firefox 53 that was released on April 19th, 2017, takes full advantages of modern hardware. The browser ships with Quantum Compositor for Windows. The graphics compositor, which determines what users see on their screen by flattening all layers of graphics into one single image, now runs in a separate process.
This enables Mozilla to make Firefox more stable and faster because the separate process runs on a computers' GPU instead of CPU.
The next is a redesigned controls for video and audio HTML5 content. HTML5 media on Firefox 53 won't autoplay by default until users switch to that tab.
What is worth noting on Firefox 53 is that Windows users can select between 32-bit and 64-bit Firefox during installation. Firefox 53 also removes support for 32-bit Firefox on MacOS, as well as for older Pentium 4 and Opteron CPUs on Linux.
With "half a billion people around the world" using Firefox, Mozilla said that Firefox version 53 ships with two new themes: Compact Light and Compact Dark. The former uses the default theme colors, while the latter inverts them.
There are also Lightweight themes for private browsing windows.
Firefox also redesigned the interface for granting and managing a website’s permissions. When users visit a website that wants to access sensitive hardware, for example, users will see a dialog box that highlights the permisiion the website is requesting.
To change a site’s permissions, users can click on the 'i' icon in the Awesome Bar.
On the developers' side, Firefox 53 supports positioned CSS Masks. This allows web designers to partially or fully hide visual elements within a webpage. Masks work by overlaying images or other graphics that define which regions of an element should be visible, translucent, or transparent.
These Masks can be configured to use either luminance (white pixels correspond to fully visible pixels while black pixels render the area transparent) or alpha values for occlusion (transparent pixels in the mask cause transparent pixels in the element).
Firefox 53 also supports WebM video with alpha, which allows playing videos with transparent backgrounds
The new display: flow-root value, which achieves similar results to clearfix, is also supported.
More details about Firefox 53 is available for web developers on Mozilla's website.
Android
Firefox 53 on Android has one major new feature: Compact tabs that can be accessed in Settings - General. What it does, is allowing users to display their tabs in two columns in portrait mode, making it easier for them to switch tabs when they have several of them opened.
Other updates include:
- Right to Left Language Support: Arabic (ar), Urdu (ur), Hebrew (he) and Persian (fa).
- Long press on a search suggestion removes it from browser history.
- Reader Mode displays estimated reading time for the page.
After the announcement, Firefox 53 for desktop is available for download on Firefox's website. All existing users should be able to upgrade their browsers automatically. For its Android version however, Firefox 53 is rolling out gradually on Google Play.