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A compression engineer revisits JPEG XL's standing on the Web, noting that despite its technical strengths over JPEG and WebP, Chrome dropped support in 2023. He points out that a new Rust-based JPEG XL decoder has since appeared in Firefox and parts of Chrome, partly to avoid repeating a security flaw once found in WebP, but argues this alone doesn't settle whether JPEG XL deserves broad Web adoption.
A security researcher published a proof-of-concept called the Deathray, a tiny WebGPU program that locks up a Mac's graphics pipeline after a single click on a malicious webpage. The bug reproduces across Chrome, Firefox and Safari on Apple Silicon Macs running macOS Tahoe, but does not cause the same lasting freeze on other operating systems. An infinite compute-shader loop feeding a shared buffer into a render shader appears to be the trigger, forcing victims to hard-restart their machine.
Brave released new benchmark data asserting its desktop browser consumes 44% less CPU, 28% less memory, and 10% less energy than Chrome, Edge, and Firefox, while loading full pages about 20% faster. The company attributes the gains largely to blocking ads, trackers, and analytics scripts that would otherwise generate extra background processing after the visible page content loads.
Solipsism Browser is a new open-source Android browser built on Chromium that launched about three months ago, offering extensive customization and design options typically associated with Firefox forks rather than Chrome. Despite its early stage, reviewers note it already feels highly polished and distinct from mainstream Chromium-based browsers.
A Hacker News poster described being stuck in a repeating Google reCAPTCHA challenge when trying to access archive.is using current Firefox on Linux with strict privacy settings enabled. Disabling Privacy Badger and switching to private browsing did not resolve the issue, prompting the user to ask whether other Firefox users are experiencing similar problems.
A follow-up Wireshark analysis of Firefox 155 confirms an earlier finding: toggling off Mozilla's AI kill switch disables generative AI features but does nothing to stop background telemetry or advertising data collection. The retest comes six months after Mozilla's CEO publicly called the AI switch one of the browser's most important features, even as onboarding flows never mention what the control actually covers.
Mozilla has rolled out a new feature called Ad Blocker within Firefox for iPhone and iPad, designed to stop many third-party ads and ad trackers from loading on web pages. The tool is off by default and must be manually switched on through Settings > Browsing > Ad Blocker, and it requires iOS or iPadOS 15 or later. Mozilla says the rollout is gradual, so not every user will see the option immediately.
A commentator pushes back against a wave of criticism aimed at Mozilla's Firefox browser for maintaining a presence on X, noting that critics who switched to alternatives like Vivaldi remain active on the same or similar platforms. The piece frames this backlash as misguided given Firefox's shrinking market share and its role as one of the few browsers not built on Google's Chromium engine.
Mozilla has launched a native Ad Blocker feature for Firefox on iOS that blocks many third-party ads and ad-related trackers before they load. The feature relies on Apple's WebKit Content Blocker technology and the EasyList filter list, and is disabled by default, requiring users to enable it through Settings > Browsing > Ad Blocker.
Mozilla has officially rolled out a native ad-blocking feature in Firefox for iOS after a brief testing period. Built using Apple's WebKit Content Blocker technology and the EasyList filter, it strips out most third-party ads and trackers before pages load, cutting data usage and cleaning up cluttered sites. The feature is off by default and must be enabled through the browser's settings.
Mozilla announced it will turn on JPEG XL decoding by default across all Firefox platforms starting with version 157, using its Rust-based jxl-rs decoder. The feature has been available as an opt-in Labs setting since Firefox 152 and behind a hidden preference since earlier releases, and now gains multithreaded decoding to match performance with Safari's implementation.
Floccus is a free browser extension that synchronizes bookmarks across Chrome, Edge, Firefox, Opera, Vivaldi, Brave, and Kiwi, working on Windows, MacOS, Linux, iOS, and Android. It lets users store bookmark data in Google Drive, Dropbox, self-hosted Nextcloud, Linkwarden, KaraKeep, Git, or a personal NAS via WebDAV, with optional password encryption for added privacy.