Firefox 98 rolling out with new customization features for Android and iOS

XDA

By Corbin Davenport

Published Mar 8, 2022

Firefox 98 is now rolling out on all platforms, which includes new customization features on Android and download changes on desktop.

Firefox is one of the few web browsers left with a non-Chromium rendering engine engine, giving Mozilla the ability to try out new web features and low-level performance changes in a way that would be impractical or difficult to maintain for Chromium-based web browsers. Firefox 98 is now rolling out on desktop and mobile platforms, and this time around, Mozilla is actually focusing on design updates instead of engine optimizations.

Firefox on desktop platforms has supported custom backgrounds on the home page (new tab page) for years, with a massive library of themes to choose from, but now wallpapers are coming to the Android and iOS apps too. Mozilla UX designer Melissa Chang created the first batch of wallpapers, and there are additional images based on Pixar's new Turning Red film, which Mozilla has been doing other brand integrations with over the past few months.

Firefox 96 Desktop Changelog

Firefox now has a new optimized download flow. Instead of prompting every time, files will now download automatically. They can still be opened from the downloads panel with just one click.
You can now delete downloaded files directly from the download panel and other download views using the context menu.The use of webRequest used to cause addons to start early during Firefox startup. This has changed to only use webRequest blocking calls. Non-blocking calls no longer cause an early startup for addons.

Firefox 96 Android Changelog

The full changelog was not available when this article was written, check this page for the latest-available version.

Firefox on iOS is also receiving the ability to move the search bar to either the top or bottom of the display, just like the Android browser has offered for a while now. Even though having the bar on the bottom usually is preferable on phones, as your finger doesn't have to reach as far on tall screens, it's always great to have more options.

Firefox 98 on the desktop changes how downloads are handled — instead of showing a popup prompt by default, files will now download automatically, just like how Chrome and most other web browsers function. Downloaded files can also be deleted from the download panel (and anywhere else downloads are displayed) with the right-click/context menu.

Finally, the Firefox Focus browser on Android will soon have an HTTPS-only mode, which blocks loading any websites or resources hosted on domains without HTTPS support.

You can download Firefox for desktop platforms from Mozilla’s website, and it’s available on the Play Store for Android devices. Mozilla also recently made Firefox available on the Microsoft Store for Windows PCs.

https://apps.microsoft.com/store/detail/9nzvdkpmr9rd