Firefox 85 ditches flash and strengthens privacy protections

Do you hear that? These are the last breaths of Adobe Flash, which could ultimately be made obsolete by Mozilla’s release of Firefox 85 Tuesday.

Until now, Firefox was the last of the old guard to support Flash. Apple first dissed the software in 2010 by banning it from iPhones, then again in 2020 by refusing to support it with Safari 14, and Google and Microsoft both ditched it earlier this year with the Chrome versions version 88 and Edge 88, respectively. Although the software was an early pioneer in web gaming, video, and animation, Adobe previously announced a long-term strategy to stop Flash Player updates and distribution, encouraging creators to migrate any dependent content to more modern open formats.

In addition to a few notable omissions, Firefox 85 also added some cool new features, including network partitioning which protects users from tracking supercookies by splitting browser cache by website.

“Over the years, trackers stored user IDs in the form of supercookies in increasingly obscure parts of the browser, particularly in Flash storage, ETags, and HSTS flags, ”Mozilla wrote in a blog post. “The changes we’re making to Firefox 85 dramatically reduce the effectiveness of cache-based supercookies by eliminating a tracker’s ability to use them on websites.”

Other important additions include changes to the way bookmarked pages are stored in the browser and an option to delete all saved credentials by clicking a single button, which could make life easier for users who share a computer or need to empty their browser for privacy reasons.