Updating Firefox? This is what's new in Firefox 153
One of the most notable new features, Containers, lets you open the same website in multiple tabs and sign into a different website account with each.
Mozilla this week announced the full release of Firefox 153.0, which introduces several new features for the open source web browser. If you're upgrading to Firefox 153 today, this is what you can expect.
What's new
- Containers: You can now have a single website open in separate tabs and sign in with a different account, keeping your login sessions separate.
- Despite the name, Containers should not be thought of as a privacy feature. While it may be useful for keeping user-specific histories separate or algorithms unspoiled, Containers in no way obscures your identity to website owners, ad publishers, or anyone else who might be watching you browse.
- This feature earlier existed as the Mozilla-created "Multi-Account Containers" extension, and now it's built into the browser as an opt-in feature.
- QR code sharing: When you right-click a tab, you now have the option to generate a QR code leading to the tab's URL.
- HDR video on Windows: Now when you watch HDR content on Firefox with an HDR-enabled monitor on Microsoft Windows 11 with the HDR feature enabled, the video properly renders as HDR.
- As if you needed more caveats, Mozilla adds, "Laptop displays that only offer 'HDR video streaming' are not supported at this time. Some videos recorded on phones in certain orientations are currently not shown as HDR."
- Experimental JPEG XL support: New in the Firefox Labs section of your settings page is support for the new image format JPEG XL. If for some reason you're working with cutting-edge images, you can enable this so that they're properly rendered.
- Speaking of Firefox Labs, you can now quickly access that settings page by simply typing "labs" into your address bar.
What's getting better
- PDF editing: You can now drag and drop PDF files into the PDF sidebar to merge them, and you can also add images to a PDF.
- The eyedropper: You can now quickly access Firefox's handy color picker tool by simply typing "eyedropper" or "color picker" or "pick color" in the address bar.
- Extension privacy: Previously, extensions always had access to local files by default. This is now changed, and you'll have to explicitly give extensions this permission instead.
- Privacy awareness: When websites have access to your location, the location icon will now appear in bright red in the address bar.
Zooming out
Why this update matters: Firefox is the only significant competition to Google Chrome and Apple Safari dominance, both big tech proprietary products.
- Also, this is the last monthly release for Firefox. From now on, major Firefox releases will be coming at you every two weeks.
Bizarrely, Mozilla also decided this week to restart its active social media presence on X (formerly known as Twitter). This happens at the same time the social media network has become overrun with accounts using its synthetic image production program "Grok" to create inappropriate and illegal content.
My take: I could have used the image feature this morning for a project I was working on. I don't like the move back to X, though. I prefer Firefox over Chrome or Brave for my Linux desktop, but I may seek out an alternative as Mozilla seems to have failed to maintain its conscience.
Diving in
The fineprint: You can learn more by reading the Firefox 153.0 release notes.
Get it now: Expect to see an upgrade to Firefox 153 in your whatever your software source is at any moment. If you don't have Firefox installed, you can get it right now by visiting the Firefox download page.
