Firefox 85.0 is now available as the first major release of the popular open source web browser in 2021, including several new features, including a highly anticipated background privacy-enhancing feature called Network Partition. The release is also significant because it comes shortly after Google decided to cut off API access to various Google services for all open source Chromium core-based browsers. Google's move removes several useful features from the open source Chromium browser, which will now switch to this latest version of Firefox.
What's New?
One of the main features of Firefox 85 is the new browser anti-tracking feature, which will help improve user privacy. When enabled, the feature basically stores data like website caches, CSS files, images, and per-website TLS client certificates. Firefox 85 becomes the first open source browser to integrate this feature, which until now has only been available in proprietary browsers such as Apple Safari and Google Chrome. In addition to this, there are several other minor improvements, such as the ability to delete all saved connections with one click from the browser's built-in password manager. The browser also offers several improvements for web developers, including changes to the Page Inspector tool. In addition, Firefox 85 is also the first browser to ship without support for Adobe's now deprecated Flash Player plugin. Firefox 85 is available for download from the browser's FTP directory, ahead of its official release later today.