Mozilla launched a major Firefox update for Mac, iOS, Android, and more this past summer and now the popular browser gets another useful overhaul today. For iOS and Android, Firefox now has a new homepage with a focus on recently viewed tabs and searches, one-tap private mode, and more.
Mozilla announced the new Android and iOS Firefox release on its blog today:
In today’s mobile release we continue to put our users first and today introduce a completely new homepage experience that helps you accomplish what you set out to do whenever you go online. The new Firefox home is a re-entry point for you to access previously opened tabs with articles you have yet to finish, sites you’ve bookmarked, and search histories organized by topics so you can find it all in one central spot. Today’s mobile release is just the beginning as we plan to roll out more features that build on this experience.
Here’s how Mozilla describes the new features on Firefox mobile:
- Jump back into your last open tab: There are moments in your day when you are reading an article and suddenly get distracted. To help you get back to what you were doing in a split second, we’ve created an easy way to jump back into your last open active tab or just as quickly start a new search.
- Recently saved bookmarks are now easily available from your homepage: In the past, users would use bookmarks or browser history to get to information they wanted to review later. To make it easy to get to your bookmarks, we’ve added the most recent bookmarks you’ve viewed to the Firefox homepage. For Firefox accounts users, you’ll also have your recently saved desktop bookmarks available to you on Firefox on mobile. You can also get to all of your bookmarks by clicking on Show All.
- Recent searches grouped by topic: There are times when you go deep into a topic you’re researching like a city that you’re planning to travel to or that big ticket electronic item. Before you purchase those items, you search reviews and articles for some time. Instead of the gazillions tabs piling up on that topic, Firefox for Android now groups and lists them so you can easily get back into the flow of researching. We’ll keep the information readily available for you for 14 days.
- Clutter free tabs: In the physical world, a room full of unpacked boxes or a sink full of dishes is a sight that can make you feel overwhelmed before you’ve completed the task. Now, think about your mobile device and the visual clutter you encounter every day as you add more and more tabs throughout the week. We heard from users who kept tabs so they can go back to them at a later time but struggled with “tab clutter.” So, when we tested this new feature they saw the benefit as a useful and considerate reminder of what they haven’t looked at. Once you haven’t visited a tab within 14 days, we will move it to an “inactive state”. This means that you can still hold on and go back to those tabs but they will no longer clutter your view and you can easily close them when you’re ready. This feature will only be available on Android and will be available on iOS in the coming months.
- Choose your own Pocket stories: After our relaunch of Firefox for Android, we heard from our users that they loved exploring new articles from Pocket but wanted content that was tailored to their area of interest. Today, we are introducing a variety of topics that you can choose from to customize your Pocket feed to what matches your interests. The customizable feature will only be available on Android. On iOS, users continue to get Pocket stories but the customizable feature is not yet available.
Firefox is a free download from the App Store and Google Play store.
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