Mozilla Company third significant release of the experimental Firefox Preview browser, developed under the code name . In the near future the issue will be published in the catalog (requires Android 5 or later to work). The code is available at . The first stable release is expected in the first half of 2020. After the project has been stabilized and all planned functionality has been implemented, 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 :
- advanced protection against tracking of movements, allowing, by analogy with the desktop version of Firefox, to block advertising with a code for tracking movements, web analytics counters, social network widgets, hidden methods of user identification and code for mining cryptocurrencies. By default, Strict mode is active. According to developers, enabling blocking speeds up page loading by an average of 20%. When you touch the icon with the image of a shield, a window opens with information about blocked elements with the ability to view in detail the blocking list for the current site.
- By default, the option to open external links (following links from third-party applications) in private mode is enabled.
- Added an option to automatically clear the history of opening pages when exiting the browser.
- Added the ability to select the types of information that will be synchronized between devices. For now, only bookmarks and page opening history are offered for synchronization.
- Added behavior of automatic and background video and audio playback.
- An interface for viewing and managing downloads has been implemented. The download status is displayed through a widget in the notification area, through which you can also pause, continue or cancel the download. After the download is complete, a dialog pops up through which you can open the downloaded file.
- Instead of the Quick Action panel, a new implementation of the browser menu is proposed.
- Added the ability new engines for accessing search engines.
- Suggested to move the navigation bar to the bottom or top of the screen.
- setting to set a global zoom level that applies to all sites.
Main features of Firefox Preview:
- High performance. Firefox Preview is claimed to be up to two times faster than the classic Firefox for Android, which is achieved through the use of optimizations based on the results of code profiling (PGO - Profile-guided optimization) at the compilation stage and by including the IonMonkey JIT compiler for 64-bit ARM systems. In addition to ARM, GeckoView assemblies are also now being generated for x86_64 systems.
- Enables protection against movement tracking and various parasitic activities by default.
- 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 suggestion mode that suggests 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 the browser is closed, 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.
- There is a function to send a tab or collection to another device.
Source: opennet.ru