Firefox 90 Introduces New Track Blocker to Fix Broken Site Connections (APK Download)

This story was originally published 2021/07/07
8:11 a.m. PDTJul 7, 2021 and last update 2021/07/14
3:03 am PDTJul 14, 2021.

As always, Mozilla started rolling out Firefox 90 for Android ahead of the official release on July 13, and we’ve already spotted quite a few changes on our own. But now the company’s official changelog is in place, filled with more details about what’s new in Firefox 90. Let’s dive in.

Following major iconographic changes in version 89 as part of a complete desktop overhaul, this version contains fewer new features. From what we could see, there are only a few minor tweaks, with the Firefox Account settings moving lower and the Set as default browser switch to a more prominent banner at the top. We’ve also spotted a new Credit Cards entry that, unsurprisingly, lets you save payment methods in your browser and Firefox account. You can add multiple cards, but at this time you cannot give them nicknames to help you tell them apart. To access your cards and autofill, you need to verify your identity through biometrics (if configured). You can find more details on the Firefox support pages.

Left: Firefox 89 settings. Middle: Firefox 90 settings. Right: Credit cards section.

In the privacy department, Mozilla announced that it makes it easier to use Facebook to connect to third-party websites with SmartBlock v2. Prior to Firefox 90, you couldn’t log in with Facebook during an incognito session because the browser blocks Facebook tracking cookies by default. While you can expect this behavior if you are a tech-savvy person, ordinary people might just notice that the website they are trying to connect to is broken. To combat the problem, the new SmartBlock version of Firefox 90 recognizes when you try to sign in with Facebook and will temporarily unblock the service’s trackers to allow you to sign in. Mozilla is also working to improve the situation when using Strict Tracker Blocking mode.

In more technical news, Firefox 90 enables the so-called back / forward cache (BFCache) for supported websites using offload event listeners, so you might notice that the forward and backward browses are a bit more fast on these. In addition, FTP connections are completely dead in the latest version. Mozilla has already disabled file transfer protocol support in Firefox 88, but it was possible to re-enable it via flags until now. This is no longer an option, as the underlying code has been completely removed in the stable version of the Firefox 90 desktop. To access the FTP servers you will need to use a dedicated browser, such as FileZilla in the future.

Unfortunately, Mozilla has yet to add a pull-to-refresh or any new officially supported add-ons to the Android version. again, after not modifying the list for the latest versions. We can only hope that the situation will improve with the next versions. In the meantime, you’ll still have to rely on Firefox Nightly for access to more add-ons – here’s how to set it up.

Firefox 90 for Android is starting to roll out to the Play Store, but if you want to get your hands on it right away, you can download it from APK Mirror.