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Mozilla has launched Firefox 70 for macOS, which continues to enhance the browser's privacy features as well as bringing significant improvements to performance and power efficiency.

Recent versions of Firefox have included several extensions to the Mozilla's Enhanced Tracking Protection (ETP) system, and this release is no different. ETP now features social tracking protection, which blocks cross-site tracking cookies from sites like Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn.

Firefox 70 also introduces a Privacy Protections report, which offers a summary of the trackers Firefox has blocked. So if you think the blocking is too strict (if a website doesn't work properly, for example) you can check the report and customize the protection accordingly.

In addition, there are improvements to Firefox Lockwise, the browser's digital identity and password management tool. Lockwise now lets you create, update, and delete logins and passwords to sync across all your devices. Meanwhile, integrated breach alerts from Firefox Monitor notify you if saved logins and passwords have been compromised in online data breaches, and Monitor is also now capable of complex password generation.

Thanks to improvements to the browser's core engine components, Firefox 70 users can also expect a significant reduction in power consumption (Mozilla quote improved power usage by three times or more for many use cases), along with faster page loads by as much as 22 percent, and reduced resource use for video by up to 37 percent.

Mozilla's full changelog can be found here. If you're already a Firefox user, you should receive an automatic upgrade after restarting the browser. For everyone else, Firefox 70 is available for macOS as a free download directly from the Mozilla website.

Article Link: Firefox 70 for Mac Brings Social Tracking Protection and Notable Performance Gains
 

Nozuka

macrumors 68040
Jul 3, 2012
3,602
6,108
Been back to firefox for about a year now (maybe a bit longer) and i'm very happy with it.
Don't feel like giving Google any more data than necessary...

Also in love with the container feature. Helps alot when you need to use the same website with different accounts
 

Nozuka

macrumors 68040
Jul 3, 2012
3,602
6,108
Don't like the new icon in this update though... At least in Win10 it seems harder to see what it is supposed to represent in the taskbar...
 

adrianlondon

macrumors 603
Nov 28, 2013
5,521
8,336
Switzerland
Pinch to zoom is on its way, they say, but I've been reading that for years. There's an option to enable it in Nightly but it messes up toolbar extensions. I currently use an extension called "Multi-touch Zoom" which isn't bad.

I have an issue on the current Catalina beta though, whereby the tab bar is hard to use. Mouse clicks need to be in a small area below where they should be. Hoping for a fix in the next beta. But apart from that, I've been using Firefox on my Mac for ages and I love it. It's now faster than Safari, it doesn't reload pages each time I swipe back when reading forums, it has great cookie management, and is highly customisable.

Also, finally, the bookmarks, history and "send URL to device" sync works well and fast to Firefox on my iPhone.
 
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Nozuka

macrumors 68040
Jul 3, 2012
3,602
6,108

one more

macrumors 603
Aug 6, 2015
5,146
6,569
Earth
I like Firefox as a secondary browser and a TorBrowser. It would be interesting to have a more direct comparison of its performance with Safari, which comes bundled with any Mac and iOS device.

Does Firefox have any worthy advantages, encouraging people to switch over? Or is it aimed more at people who use multiple platforms and want to have everything synchronised across their different devices?
 
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Janichsan

macrumors 68040
Oct 23, 2006
3,123
11,850
Thoughts on this Vs Brave?
Brave has its merits, but I found Firefox faster even before this update. I actually found most other browsers I use from time to time faster than Brave (the others being Opera and Safari - Vivaldi is about on the same level as Brave).
 

69Mustang

macrumors 604
Jan 7, 2014
7,895
15,045
In between a rock and a hard place
And also this graph should have been in the news post. Everbody loves graphs ;)
screen-shot-2019-10-22-at-10.39.01-am-1.png


If you like graphs, you'll love Data Is Beautiful. WARNING!! Data Is Beautiful can be an extreme time suck. A thread about Firefox is a perfect place for an introduction. I'mma just leave this here.
 

adrianlondon

macrumors 603
Nov 28, 2013
5,521
8,336
Switzerland
Does Firefox have any worthy advantages, encouraging people to switch over? Or is it aimed more at people who use multiple platforms and want to have everything synchronised across their different devices?
At the moment, I only have Apple devices. I swapped from Safari for two main reasons: cookie management and reloading on swiping back/forth in forums.

I didn't like it at first, as it took some getting used to. Not being able to use keychain annoyed me for a while until I discovered Bitwarden. (I now use Bitwarden across all my Mac apps and devices, and am moving away from keychain.) Cookie management is great. I have the browser set to delete all cookies, apart from certain sites I set up as exceptions, when I close the browser. I also use the Containers facility to keep certain nosey websites (such as Facebook, Youtube, Linkedin) locked in their own little worlds.

It's highly customisable, and I've probably spent hours editing "userChrome.css" to get everything looking just the way I want. I'm also a fan of uBlock Origin, which no longer works on Safari.

I'm sure there are other advantages, but I've been using it almost 100% for two years, only reverting to Safari when I'm testing something, so I've forgotten a lot of the small advantages (and disadvantages no doubt).
 

star-affinity

macrumors 68000
Nov 14, 2007
1,992
1,321
The performance is vastly better and it doesn't kill my battery instantly anymore, but I'm still waiting for color management, pinch-to-zoom, and rubberband scrolling.
I'm waiting for non-truncated pop-up menus (check the language switch menu on https://wikipedia.org for example) and a contextual menu that adheres to dark mode, other than that Firefox has been a great browser for me since I switched over to it on my home computer (about a year ago when the Firefox Quantum release came out).

Stays snappy when Safari gets sluggish (for example when switching between many open tabs).
 

retta283

Suspended
Jun 8, 2018
3,180
3,482
Firefox has much much better performance than Chrome, it's my personal choice.

The new icon is terrible though.
 

Populus

macrumors 603
Aug 24, 2012
5,835
8,311
Spain, Europe
I love the new icon. However, I think I have already chosen Brave as my second browser after a lot of testing Chromium, un-googled Chromium, Iridium, Edge and Firefox.

Google Chrome was my secondary browser along with Safari, which has always been the main one.

But then, I wanted to have as little tracking from Google as I could. That's when I tried Chromium, as it was an open source project... But with a lot of code calling home to Google, which is the main developer.

Then, I tried un-googled Chromium and is equally fast, but I don't know the people behind it's manipulation, and it just releases a new version few times per year, leaving you with an old version most of the times. Then I discovered Iridium, a similar project that has the same problem: most of the time it's not up to date.

Finally, I have been installing and uninstalling Firefox beta, which already was this version that today has been released. And while being unique by using it's own engine (Gecko), I feel I need a Chromium based browser, because of its speed, and most important, the integration with Mac gestures. And I find this the main issue of Firefox.

I don't feel comfortable with the zoom behavior, the pinch to zoom, and those gestures. And overall I don't feel Firefox integrates fully with my Mac UI. Sorry, but I had to find a private, not Google centered browser.

I tried Chromium Edge and it was going to be my secondary browser if I didn't find something better... It was fast and I don't believe that a browser by Microsoft will send data to Google. But it's UI is terrible, it was so difficult for me to change the default browser to not use Bing... I finally did it, but some other options were very well hidden as well.

And that's when I knew that Brave browser had changed its engine from Mozilla's one to Chromium's one. Wow, Brave browser is now based on the fast Chromium, I have to try it!

So far I'm loving all its privacy focused features, it's very fast, and I don't need to install an ad blocker (with the risks of data mining). Yeah, I know it belongs to a private company and it is not open source? Yeah, and it's an advertising company behind. But at least the data doesn't do to Google (I hope), and anyways, Safari is my main browser on Mac, and has always been.
 
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Sasparilla

macrumors 68020
Jul 6, 2012
2,020
3,456
Nice, the power saving change for the Mac has finally landed. Firefox could use a boost to its user numbers so its good this is finally deployed.
 
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coolfactor

macrumors 604
Jul 29, 2002
7,463
10,382
Vancouver, BC
They employed CoreAnimation API after 13 years. Am I too demanding to expect it sooner?

Firefox suffered from a "single codebase across multiple platforms" problem for years. To adopt pure macOS (or Mac OS X) tech would have been a deviation. Firefox has improved drastically the past couple of years to look and feel more like a *native* Mac app.
 
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bluecoast

macrumors 68020
Nov 7, 2017
2,256
2,673
You can see the scroll speed change instantly. Haven’t had a chance to check out the battery life.

I like how FF is making privacy its key selling point too & trust in Mozilla too. They need to find a way to stop taking all that cash off Google though...

Having said that, it’s always my 2nd browser on the Mac but has been my primary on Windows since it was called Phoenix.
 
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