The Firefox 149 update is now rolling out to users, adding a new split view feature, a free built-in VPN and a welcome Linux-specific change.
Split View in Firefox lets you view two web pages side-by-side inside a single browser window, which is a cleaner approach than how you might have been doing this previously, i.e., snapping two separate browser windows against each other.
With Split View (versus the old method) all your tabs stay together, there’s no duplicated window chrome eating up screen space and closing or rearranging the split won’t disturb the rest of your browsing session (no accidentally closing an entire window).
Click a side to give it focus (a border is shown to indicate this), and drag the handle in the middle to resize the split (in my testing, this was nice and and fluid). Both pages remain regular tabs, so you can interact, scroll, navigate, click links, refresh and so on as normal.
When a split is focused you’ll spot a small bar appear at the bottom, which has an overflow menu. In that menu are options to separate both tabs in a split (i.e., turn them back to independent tabs), reverse the order of tabs in the split or close both tabs.
You can create a tab split view in Firefox 149 like so:
- Right-click on a tab in the tab bar > ‘Add to Split View’
- Select two tabs using shift + click > right-click > ‘Open in Split View’
Other web browsers, like Google Chrome, Zen and Vivaldi, already offer this feature, some letting you right-click on a link in a page to instantly open it side-by-side. I’d imagine Firefox will offer that too at some point, but that method isn’t in 149.0.
Firefox’s free VPN (rolling out gradually)
Firefox 149 includes an optional free VPN, which lets you mask your location and IP address so that your browsing activities remain private.
“Whether you’re using public Wi-Fi while traveling, searching for sensitive health information, or shopping for something personal, this feature gives you a simple way to stay protected”, the release notes say, with a whiff of LLM-generated copy.
Firefox VPN is browser-only (it won’t affect other apps) and you can choose to turn it on or off for specific websites. There’s a 50GB monthly data limit, which Mozilla boasts is 10x more than other major browsers offer.
(Most other major browsers don’t include built-in free VPNs, so they ought to hang their bragging coat on that peg, but hey).
Sadly, you might not find Firefox VPN is available when you update, not right away.
The feature will “gradually” roll out to users in US, UK, Germany and France from today. it wasn’t available to me (in the UK) at the time of writing, so I couldn’t test it – I’ll revise this post (and add a screenshot) once I can.
Now uses XDG portal picker
Firefox now attempts to use the native XDG portal file picker on Linux, where available (falling back to the GTK3 picker if not).
On non-GNOME desktops, this should mean the window you see when you are asked to pick a location to save files from the web to, or select a file to upload to a webpage, now uses your desktop environment’s native file picker.
If you’re on Ubuntu with GNOME, you won’t notice any difference; Firefox’s been using the GTK3 picker for some time. For those on other flavours (or distros) using KDE Plasma, COSMIC and Xfce, the change may be more apparent.
Trust panel & error page changes
A new ‘Trust Panel’ makes it debut in this update, accessed via the shield icon in the URL bar. It unifies the previously separate Privacy and Security popovers, combing the same information in a single panel topped by a cute illustration.
Same information, but one less icon taking up space in the URL bar.
Not that we like seeing them, but there’s a refreshed set of Firefox’s error pages using new visuals and clearer language in an effort to, Mozilla says, “create a more cohesive experience”.
In light of its recent social media stunt to (it turns out, re)announce its new Firefox mascot Kit, it’s odd the updated error page and trust panel feature an entirely different illustrated fox than the vectorised little critter Mozilla paid handsomely to have made for it.
Still, if you do love Kit, he/she/they/it is about – it pops up in the browser’s on-boarding.
Other changes
Firefox 149 brings other welcome changes, albeit the sort you need to go looking for to notice.
PDFs render ‘significantly faster’ in the built-in viewer (pdf.js) thanks to hardware acceleration; address autofill has been turned on for users in Australia, India, Italy, Poland and Austria; and notifications from sites Safe Browsing flags as malicious are now automatically blocked.
On-device translations also see a boost. Firefox can now translate webpage to/from Thai, Bosnian, Serbian and Norwegian (Bokmål), and Croatian (already supported) benefits from improved accuracy of translations.
On macOS and Windows (not Linux, sadly) you can now add a Share button to the toolbar via the customise toolbar option. This will make punting pages to other apps faster by way of those systems’ native share handling backends.
Finally, you can opt-in to test Firefox’s new Tab Notes feature. This does what you’d expect: right-click a tab to attach a written note. I wrote about it earlier this year, so I’m pleased to see it’s still progressing and is now a little easier to access.
For more details on the major highlights in this release, see the official release notes (once they’re live).
Download Firefox 149
Firefox 149 is available to download for Windows, macOS and Linux from the official Firefox website from today, March 24.
On Ubuntu, Firefox is provided as a Snap and updates silently in the background — keep an eye out for a prompt to relaunch the browser if it’s already open. Linux Mint users can update via the Mint Update tool or apt.
You can also install via the Firefox Flatpak on Flathub.