Mozilla is still pumping out new Firefox update at a rapid pace, and right on schedule, Firefox 122 is starting to roll out to desktop and mobile platforms today.
The most significant change in Firefox 122 might be images and descriptions for search suggestions, similiar to what Google Chrome and Safari have supported for a few years now. The more detailed search suggestions can help you figure out if a given result is the right one, but Mozilla notes it only works “when provided by the search engine.” It seems like Google might be the only supported search engine—it didn’t work for me with Bing, DuckDuckGo, or Wikipedia set as the default search.
Mozilla has also improved the local translation feature that firstrolled out in Firefox 118last year. Translated web pages should now be more reliable, and the bugs that could cause interactive widgets to break and page content to dissapear have been fixed.
Also, Firefox 122 includes support for creating and usingpasskeysstored in the iCloud Keychain on macOS. The same functionality wasadded to Google Chrome on macOS in October, and is also now working in most other Chromium-based browsers. It’s still early days for passkeys replacing passwords, but integrations between browsers and sync platforms are an important step in the right direction.
Finally, Mozilla has anew installation packagefor Ubuntu and other Debian-based Linux systems, in addition to the officially-supportedSnapandFlatpack packages. The Snap and Flatpak versions won’t work well on some Linux distributions, and Ubuntu stopped offering Firefox as a regular native application a few years ago (in favor of the Snap package), so this new package is primarily for those use cases. Mozilla previouslypartnered with Linux Mintto maintain a Debian-compatible package, and now other Debian-based systems can get a similar experience.
How to Update Firefox
Firefox will automatically install the update on your computer, phone, or tablet when it’s available. To immediatelycheck for and install any available updates, click the menu icon at the top-right of the browser toolbar and select “About Firefox.”
You can download Firefox fromMozilla’s official website, theGoogle Play Store,Apple App Store, andMicrosoft Store.
