Mozilla Company second major release of the experimental Firefox Preview browser, codenamed . In the near future the issue will be published in the catalog (requires Android 5 or later to work). The code is available at . After the stabilization of the project and the implementation of all the planned functionality, the browser will replace the Firefox edition for Android, the release of new releases of which has been discontinued since .
Firefox Preview GeckoView engine built on Firefox Quantum technologies and a set of libraries , which are already used to build browsers ΠΈ . GeckoView is a variant of the Gecko engine that is packaged as a standalone library that can be updated independently, while Android Components includes libraries with generic components that provide tabs, input completion, search suggestions, and other browser features.
Π :
- Now you can place the Firefox Preview search widget on the home screen, as well as add a button to the home screen to open private browsing mode and shortcuts to quickly open sites;
- Added option to open links in private mode by default;
- Support for background playback of multimedia content is provided with the display on the start page of each tab of an indicator about video or sound playback, by clicking on which you can stop or continue playback;
- Implemented the function of sending a tab or collection to another device;
- Provided advanced control over the cleaning of various types of browser data (you can separately delete open tabs, site data and collections);
- Added a long touch handler to the address bar, allowing you to copy or paste content to the clipboard or open a link from the clipboard;
- Now you can connect to your account in Firefox Accounts with one click if the old Firefox for Android is already installed on the device;
- When opening a tab in private mode, a sticky notification is displayed to remind you that private mode is active. Through the notification, you can immediately close all private tabs or open the browser. A button has also been added to the start page to close all private tabs;
- An item has been added to the settings that allows you to agree or refuse to participate in Mozilla experiments;
- For connections without encryption (HTTP), the address bar now displays an insecure connection indicator (a strikethrough padlock);
- Added a private input mode for various Android keyboards such as Gboard, Swiftkey and AnySoftKeyboard, which means that the keyboard does not save data when typing in a private browsing session;
- Added the ability to selectively disable the display of recommendations in the address bar not only from search engines, but also based on history, bookmarks and clipboard contents
- Library set updated to release 12.0.0, browser engine synchronized with Mozilla GeckoView 70;
- Expanded tools to simplify the work of people with disabilities.
Main features of Firefox Preview:
- High performance. Firefox Preview is claimed to be up to two times faster than classic Firefox for Android, which is achieved through the use of profile-guided optimizations (PGO) at the compilation stage and by including the IonMonkey JIT compiler for 64-bit ARM systems. In addition to ARM builds of GeckoView are also now generated for x86_64 systems;
- Enable by default protection against movement tracking and various parasitic activity;
- A universal menu through which you can access settings, the library (favorite pages, history, downloads, recently closed tabs), select the site display mode (display the desktop version of the site), search for text on the page, switch to private mode, open a new tab and navigation between pages;
- A multi-functional address bar that includes a universal button for quick operations such as sending a link to another device and adding a site to your favorite pages list. Clicking on the address bar launches a full-screen hint mode that offers relevant input options based on browsing history and recommendations from search engines;
- Use of the concept of collections instead of tabs, allowing you to save, group and share your favorite sites.
After closing the browser, the remaining open tabs are automatically grouped into a collection, which can then be viewed and restored; - The start page displays an address bar, combined with a global search function, and shows a list of open tabs or, if no pages are open, a list of sessions that group previously opened sites in relation to browser sessions.
Source: opennet.ru