Firefox 109 It is already here with us as a new major version of the web browser developed by Mozilla, which on this occasion presents a novelty that many may find scary: Manifesto V3. Yes, we are talking about the specification for extensions promoted by Google, which in its third version threatens to significantly limit the action range of ad blockers and thus the freedom of users over the content displayed through the web browser. Don’t panic, because Mozilla has kept its word that it won’t swallow the most controversial aspects (or so it says).

The implementation of Manifesto V3 in Firefox is no surprise, seeing that Mozilla announced two years ago that it would adopt it, but in a way. The foundation explained itself in more detail in a post published on its official blog, in which it says it agrees to “implement Manifest V3 support for plugins, maintaining a high level of compatibility to support cross-development.”

“However, there are some critical areas, such as security and privacy, where our policies require a different approach. In a few specific areas, we decided to deviate from Chrome’s implementation and incorporate our own distinctive Mozilla elements. Therefore, Firefox Manifest V3 will provide cross-browser extension interoperability along with improved security and privacy and improved support for mobile extensions.”

In other words, Mozilla’s implementation of Manifesto V3 in Firefox tries to maintain a high level of interoperability with other browsers while providing the privacy that Google reportedly decided to remove from Chromium. Thus, ad blockers should work as usual in Firefox, although this may not eliminate the need for some changes in extensions.

The controversy surrounding the V3 Manifesto was such Google decided to keep version 2 of the specification for one more year., which was also adopted by Microsoft. Opera, Vivaldi and Brave have opposed the restrictions introduced in the V3 Manifesto, but we’ll see how much they resist when they see that they are Chromium-based browsers and therefore very tied to the decisions Google makes regarding the original . project. and it is the case that although Chromium is Open Source, it does not mean that the resources available to modify it are endless. How could it be otherwise, Mozilla is taking the concerns raised and using them as an arrow against its rival, which also shows that Firefox cares about privacy.

Back to what really concerns us in this entry, Firefox 109 incorporated the corresponding Spanish of Spain (es-ES) and Spanish of Argentina (es-AR) spell check dictionariesnative HTML date selection can only work with the keyboard, Arbitrary Code Guard exploit protection has been enabled for media playback to improve security for Windows users, and on macOS Cmd+trackpad keys or mouse wheel scroll the page instead of zooming. .

All the details about Mozilla Firefox 109 are available in the release notes, while the application can be obtained for Windows, macOS and Linux from the respective download section. If you have it installed, you can force the update via Main Menu > Help > “About Firefox”, although for Linux it’s logical to wait for it to arrive via the distribution repository, Snap and/or Flathub (Flatpack). The thing about Android is that it comes through the Google Play Store.