153.0

See this branch for Firefox 153 ESR: https://github.com/yokoffing/Betterfox/tree/esr153

152.0

📣 Release Notes

• Due to demand, integrated some sensible, low-risk Fastfox prefs back into the user.js 8e415d1
  • These prefs potentially help the overall performance and 'feel' of the browser.
  • Results won't necessarily translate to browser speed tests, especially for tests like Speedometer where extensions and non-default browser settings can have a large impact on the score.
  • I'll let them ride a few versions before integrating into browser fork user.js files.
• New Optional Hardening entries for Service Workers and Storage Access Heuristics.
• Added network.IDN_show_punycode to the Waterfox user.js since they recently disabled this by default.
• Added warning against unofficial Betterfox sites. #481

🦊 Firefox Releases

• In Private Browsing windows, you can now temporarily disable tracker blocking for a tab if it's causing a site to break. When you reload a page where trackers were blocked, Firefox shows a message offering to reload without the stricter protections. All other tracking protections stay active.
• Local Firefox profile backups are now available on Linux in addition to Windows, and you can restore them across platforms.
• When a PDF or other file that Firefox opens directly finishes downloading, it now opens in a background tab if you've switched tabs or closed the original page.
• The Tabs from Other Devices panel in the sidebar now lets you open tabs in a new tab or a new container tab from the context menu.
• Geolocation on Windows now respects the user's Windows location permission setting, instead of overriding it, when the user grants location permission to a page. Firefox will ask users to enable the Windows permission if it is needed.
• You can now merge multiple PDFs directly in Firefox PDF. Combine separate PDF files into a single document without ever leaving Firefox or relying on third-party tools.

Read more at:
151.0
152.0

💗 Thank You

Big thanks to everyone who supports the project!

150.0

📣 Release Notes

• A new explainer on how to disable JavaScript optimization in Firefox.
  • These options are similar to what you'd find in Chromium browsers, to reduce the risk of an attack caused by memory-related vulnerabilities:
    • Disabling optimizing compilers would have stopped roughly half of all patched V8 security bugs that attackers exploited in the wild, per Google and Microsoft.
• Minor tweaks to the example policies.json file.
• Removed network.predictor prefs, as the functionality was depreciated in v.148.

🦊 Firefox Releases

You can now use Firefox’s built-in PDF editor to reorder, copy, paste, delete, and export pages in a PDF, which is pretty damn cool.

Also pretty damn cool: You can hare multiple tabs in a single step: select several tabs, right-click, and choose Copy X links.

150.0

💗 Thank You

Big thanks to everyone who submits feedback and sponsors to the effort.

149.0

📣 Release Notes

This is a quick-fix release to address #473.

• If you use macOS or Linux, please go to about:config and reset gfx.webrender.layer-compositor to false after upgrading to user.js v.149.

🦊 Firefox Releases

The latest Firefox release comes with some welcomed improvements.

149.0

💗 Thank You

Big thanks to everyone who submits feedback and sponsors to the effort.

148.0

⭐ 10,000 Stars

As of February 2026, Betterfox now has over 10k stars on GitHub. Woo-hoo!

📣 Release Notes

• Add browser.ai.control.default and set it to blocked.
  • Firefox 148 gives you control over Mozilla's new AI features.
  • If you want to use a feature, like AI Translations, add user_pref("browser.ai.control.default", "available"); to your Overrides section, then toggle individual features in about:preferences#ai.
  • You can also add the prefs found in Peskyfox if deploying across multiple machines.
• Create a Waterfox user.js.
  • Fork-specific files are side projects and will not update every release. When in doubt, use the standard Firefox user.js.
  • Reminder that Waterfox uses the ESR release cycle.
    • Betterfox ESR exists, in case you use that version of Firefox.
• Remove most Fastfox prefs by default.

♻️ Retiring Fastfox (for now)

I removed most prefs from the user.js and scrubbed mentions of Fastfox from the README.md. I have not deleted Fastfox. It's still in the repo, but I don't have any specific plans for updates at the moment.

Why? Well, mostly targeted feedback from browser vendors and user.js maintainers. Also, it's less maintenance burden for the project as a whole.

I've seen the spectrum of praise and criticism. Some of you reported these tweaks helped. Others saw no change. A few saw worse benchmark results. But honestly, that's expected when settings tweaks are a small piece of the overall browser.

I relocated browser.cache.disk.enable and media.memory_cache_max_size to Securefox, as well as all the speculative loading (preloading) prefs. Almost everything else has been removed except for one exception: I added gfx.canvas.accelerated.cache-size in the user.js as a reset due to #460.

You can reset the removed prefs in about:config, or leave them alone. No harm either way.

Here's a summary of what I've omitted this release:

/** GENERAL ***/
gfx.content.skia-font-cache-size

/** GFX ***/
gfx.canvas.accelerated.cache-items
gfx.canvas.accelerated.cache-size
webgl.max-size

/** MEMORY CACHE ***/
browser.cache.memory.capacity
browser.cache.memory.max_entry_size
browser.sessionhistory.max_total_viewers
browser.sessionstore.max_tabs_undo

/** MEDIA CACHE ***/
media.memory_caches_combined_limit_kb
media.cache_readahead_limit
media.cache_resume_threshold

/** IMAGE CACHE ***/
image.cache.size
image.mem.decode_bytes_at_a_time

/** NETWORK ***/
network.http.max-connections
network.http.max-persistent-connections-per-server
network.http.max-urgent-start-excessive-connections-per-host
network.http.request.max-start-delay
network.http.pacing.requests.enabled
network.dnsCacheEntries
network.dnsCacheExpiration
network.ssl_tokens_cache_capacity

I may re-add some prefs that should help and likely won't break anything in a future release. Consider this a soft reset.

I'm a tinkerer at heart, so I'm always on the lookout for user-facing ways to make Firefox more enjoyable.

🦊 Firefox Releases

147.0
148.0

💗 Thank You

As always, thank you for your support, getting us to 10k on GitHub! And a big thanks to everyone who submits feedback and sponsors to the effort.

146.0

📣 Release Notes

• Enabled HTTPS-Only mode. Google announced they will default to "Always Use Secure Connections" in October 2026 with Chrome 154.
  • We previously enforced HTTPS First back in Feb 2023, over two years before Mozilla made it the default experience in April 2025.
• Enabled the new, experimental Webrender compositor #449
• General cleanup

Compare changes

🦊 Firefox Releases

145.0
146.0

💗 Thank You

Big thanks to everyone who submits feedback and (new!) sponsors to the effort.

🎄 Happy Holidays! 🎄

144.0

📣 Release Notes

• Major overhaul of Fastfox entries that should improve speed and memory management on computers with 8GB+ RAM.
• No longer enforcing the ETP pref "Fix minor site issues", as we haven't seen any site breakage with it disabled. privacy.trackingprotection.allow_list.convenience.enabled = false
• Expanded prefs that disable AI.
• Expanded how to disable JIT in Securefox. We'll eventually add these entries to "Optional Hardening."

🦊 Firefox Releases

143.0
144.0

💗 Thank You

Big thanks to everyone who submits feedback and (new!) sponsors to the effort.

142.0

📣 Release Notes

• Disable AI features in Firefox, including tab grouping, link previews, and sidebar chat. Thanks for the nudge @westlandnigel!
  • Mozilla's implementation is still very experimental. Open an issue if the current prefs inside Betterfox do not disable all AI features.
  • There's now info to re-enable AI features in Common Overrides.
• Enable exceptions to relax Strict Enhanced Tracking Protection (ETP) 84a2550
• Add a new feature to block CSP reports. Please report issues at #415.
• Uncheck the "Support Firefox" checkbox on the New Tab page.
• Firefox Nightly has rolled out testing for text fragments, controlled by dom.text_fragments.create_text_fragment.enabled. Users can experiment if there's still issues as described in #397 and report feedback there.
• Unit Conversion in the address bar is now a default setting.
• Fix install.py: the default behavior automatically applies Zen user.js instead of Firefox one with #418
  • Thanks to @minh2134 and @Denperidge!

📜 Commentary

AI Features

I won’t be long-winded here. I’ll just say Mozilla’s rollout of AI features feels half-baked. And outside of that side panel chat, I don’t see how these features are useful for the average person as they stand currently.

Tab groups can be useful if they improve it over time.

I had high hopes for the tab previews, but I was very whelmed by that, too. I think Safari’s page summaries are the best implementation of AI overviews so far. Mozilla’s three bullet points just comes across as mediocre.

Strict ETP

Firefox 142 is the first release in months to pique my interest. This is largely in part to the two check boxes under ETP Strict mode in the Firefox UI.

There are now granular exceptions afforded to tracker blocking with Strict ETP. "Exceptions are split into baseline (core functionality) and convenience (extra features)."

• Avoid major website breakage. Enabling this is a no-brainer.
• Fix minor issues and make convenience features available. Less obvious. It's unclear what Mozilla considers "minor issues" and "convenience features".

Firefox has always kept an internal allowlist to unbreak sites with Strict ETP. However, as some of you have reported, sites still break. I welcome the new changes so that users have an another alternative besides downgrading to Standard ETP.

In the recent past, I've seen many folks encourage users to use Standard ETP and let uBlock Origin (uBO) handle the rest. This is saying in essence, "Let the browser be the browser, and let uBO manage your ad blocking and privacy protection." I agree with this when it comes to most browsers, but not Firefox. That's because Strict ETP is more than just more aggressive tracker blocking. The most recent protection introduced by Strict ETP is fingerprint protection.

Fingerprint Protection

Fingerprint Protection (FPP) does more than block trackers, but yet it also doesn't break shit like the old privacy.resistFingerprinting (RFP). Mozilla is navigating the waters to find a nice middle ground.

FPP is just as an example. There are other distinctions between the two ETP modes, but my main point is Strict ETP is more than just aggressive tracker blocking. It's why I've hesitated to ever demote ETP to Standard for the Betterfox project as a whole.

Suspected Fingerprinters

To combat fingerprinting attempts that Firefox cannot block (because we are unaware of the script, or because it is integrated with the site in a way such that it cannot be blocked), Firefox will limit the information it exposes to the web at all times, for every webpage.

Firefox's protection against fingerprinting

So, fingerprint mitigation:

• Reduces the distinctiveness of your browser/device profile across sites.
• Makes cross-site fingerprinting and long-term tracking harder; weakens profiling based on device characteristics.
• Lowers the signal available to passive fingerprinting techniques, forcing trackers to rely more on other signals.

Other Browsers

With Chrome, you have no choice than to let uBO (Lite!) handle trackers, but Edge comes with tracking prevention enabled by default. Edge's tracker protection is based on different batches of Disconnect filter lists, similar to the tracker blocking portion of Firefox's ETP modes.

But unlike Firefox's ETP, Edge only uses different batches of Disconnect filter lists, and the coverage is extremely unbalanced. Ironically, Edge's tracking prevention comes in Basic, Balanced, and Strict, but it might as well be Nothing, Almost Nothing, and OMG Why Don't a Third of My Websites Work?.

Another contrast can be drawn be between "just tracker blocking" and Safari's relatively new Advanced Tracking and Fingerprinting Protection — which will be enabled by default in the next iOS release. This is on top of all the other privacy protection in Safari. (Yes, I use em-dashes when I write. No, I didn't use ChatGPT.)

And while browsing on Safari is awful (mobile is okay), they seem to have struck a good balance in recent years by not breaking things in the privacy protection department. Most providers shit the bed when it comes to allowlisting site breakage. Plus, Apple's protections may be more advanced than Mozilla's at this point; I haven't compared the two in awhile.

The Future

Thankfully, using Standard ETP has become less of a concern in recent years due to Mozilla beefing up Firefox's default prefs, but I've still never been comfortable downgrading to Standard ETP.

Admittedly, I'm unsure if these two exception prefs in v.142 affect the tracking protection filter lists used, fingerprint protection, or both. Information is currently limited as to what these prefs change, and I haven't had enough time to test sites. We will be enabling both exceptions for now and monitoring what effect they have.

Of the two exception prefs, the only one up for debate is the second one affecting "extra features" on sites… whatever that means.

🦊 Firefox Releases

141.0
142.0

💗 Thank You

• Big thanks to everyone who submits feedback and sponsors the effort.

140.0

📣 Release Notes

Quick release to tidy up the project:

• Removed link to text fragment pref (for now) due to issues with some keyboard shortcuts #397
• The option to enable UI and add custom search engines is now default in Firefox
• Miscellaneous documentation and issue reports

🦊 Firefox Releases

139.0
140.0

💗 Thank You

• Big thanks to everyone who submits feedback and sponsors the effort.

138.0

📣 Release Notes

• Captive Portal Detection is now in Optional Hardening. It is no longer disabled by default.
• Disabled disable daily active users (DAU) telemetry, which was allowed on some Firefox builds. 7b91d6b
• Disabled more speculative connections prefs de573eb

🦊 Firefox Releases

138.0, .0.1, .0.3, .0.4

💗 Thank You

• Big thanks to everyone who submits feedback and sponsors the effort.