Firefox is an open source web browser developed for different platforms, it is coordinated by Mozilla and the Mozilla Foundation.
A few days ago it became known information about one of the upcoming changes that it would be coming in a future Firefox version and it is that in the Firefox Nightly compilations they have a setting to automatically close cookie request boxes.
This new feature is expected to be part of the browser in the release of Firefox 114 which, according to the browser's release cycle, would be arriving on June 6.
The automatic closing of the pop-up dialog shown on sites to confirm that identifiers can be stored in cookies in accordance with the requirements for the protection of personal data in the European Union (GDPR), is considered a good idea, since this usually annoys the user a lot.
Mentioned that these pop-up banners are distracting, obstructing content, and taking time for the user to close, Firefox developers decided to develop the browser's ability to automatically reject the request.
Today auto reply can be enabled to requests in the settings of the Security and privacy section (about: preferences # privacy), a new section “Cookie banner reduction” has appeared, only in versions of Firefox Nightly.
Currently, only the "Reduce Cookie Banners" flag is present in the section, when selected, Firefox will start, on behalf of the user, to reject requests to store identifiers in Cookies for a predefined list of sites.
For a finer adjustment, about: config provides the parameters "cookiebanners.service.mode" and "cookiebanners.service.mode.privateBrowsing", setting 0 to disable the automatic closing of cookie banners; 1 – in all cases, reject the request for permissions and ignore the banners that allow only consent; 2 – when possible, reject the request for permissions, and when it is impossible to reject, accept the storage of the Cookie.
Unlike a similar mode provided in the Brave browser and ad blockers, Firefox does not hide the block, but rather automates user action with it. Two banner rendering modes are available: mouse click simulation (cookiebanners.bannerClicking.enabled) and replacing cookies with the selected mode flag (cookiebanners.cookieInjector.enabled).
In addition to this, it is also highlighted that Firefox 112.0.2 new fix version is now available which solves three problems:
- Fixed a bug that caused high RAM consumption when displaying animated images in minimized windows (or in windows covered by other windows). Among other things, the problem also manifests itself when using animated themes. The leak rate with Youtube open is about 13MB per second.
- Fixed an issue with text disappearing in some places (some text became invisible) on Linux systems with bitmap fonts installed (for example, if you have a bitmap version of the Helvetica font).
- Resolved an issue with the display of web notifications containing images in the Windows 8 environment.
As always, for those who already use firefox, they can simply access the menu to update to the latest version, that is, Firefox users who have not disabled automatic updates will receive the update automatically.
While for those who do not want to wait for that to happen they can select Menu> Help> About Firefox after the official launch to initiate a manual update of the web browser.
The screen that opens displays the currently installed version of the web browser and runs a check for updates, provided the functionality is enabled.
Another option to update, is if you are a user of Ubuntu, Linux Mint or some other derivative of Ubuntu, you can install or update to this new version with the help of the browser's PPA.
This can be added to the system by opening a terminal and executing the following command in it:
sudo add-apt-repository ppa:ubuntu-mozilla-security/ppa -y sudo apt-get update sudo apt install firefox
The last installation method that was added «Flatpak». To do this, they must have support for this type of package.
Installation is done by typing:
flatpak install flathub org.mozilla.firefox