Firefox Focus Is Mozilla's Fast, Private and Ad-blocking Browser for iOS

Article by George Norman (Cybersecurity Editor)

on 18 Nov 2016

Mozilla has a brand new iOS app to offer: Firefox Focus, a fast and privacy-oriented browser that automatically blocks ads and other trackers.

"We live in an age where too many users have lost trust and lack meaningful controls over their digital lives," announced Firefox Vice President, Nick Nguyen. "For some users, it seems as though your web activities can follow you everywhere – across devices, across accounts. To make matters worse, the web can often feel cluttered. That’s why we are introducing Firefox Focus."

This isn't Mozilla's first browser for iOS. That would be Firefox for iOS, which was released to th public about a year ago.

And this isn’t the first time that Mozilla uses the name Focus for an iOS app.

Back in December 2015, Mozilla released a free content blocker for Safari called Focus by Firefox. Its main selling points were that it could block ad trackers, analytics trackers, social trackers, other content trackers, and even web fonts. By blocking all these trackers, Focus by Firefox helped reduce page load times and data usage.

The new Firefox Focus works as a browser and it also works as a content blocker for Safari. Instructions on how to use Firefox Focus as a browser or content blocker are available in this help article.



Firefox Focus - Main Features
  • Block ads – the browser is set by default to block ads and many of the trackers that follow you around the web.
  • Browse faster – by blocking ads and other types of trackers, the browser uses less data and loads webpages faster.
  • Erase your sessions – tap the prominent Erase button from the upper right-hand corner and the browser will erase all browsing information, including cookies, browsing history, and passwords.
  • Made by Mozilla – the company that believes everyone should have control over their lives online, and has been fighting for this since 1998.
Get Firefox Focus for iOS for free from Apple’s App Store.




On desktop, Mozilla ends the year with Firefox 50

It’s November and, as promised, Mozilla rolled out Firefox version 50, the last major release of 2016, to the public. The update was supposed to be released on November 8, but it was delayed until November 15. Why? Because Mozilla wanted to integrate startup improvements that would reduce the amount of time it takes Firefox to start.

So to put it in layman’s terms, Firefox 50 starts faster than any previous version. According to some tests, Firefox starts 35% faster without add-ons and up to 65% faster when the user has lots of add-ons.

Other changes include download protection for a large number of executable files, a tweaked Find function that lets users limit the search to whole words only,support for emojis even if the base OS doesn’t support them.

Get Firefox 50 for Windows right here on FindMySoft.
Get Firefox for other platforms directly from Mozilla.

Should Firefox require any critical fix, Mozilla will address the situation with a Firefox 50.0.1 update that is scheduled for December 13.


Firefox 51 will arrive early 2017

Firefox 51, the first Stable release of 2017, is scheduled to be released on January 24.

Since Firefox 42, the browser displays an indicator on tabs that play sound. Thanks to this indicator you can easily spot which tab is playing sound and you can easily mute it.



The upcoming Firefox 51 will improve this feature by blocking audio playback in non-active tabs. Launch a website in another tab and it won’t play audio until you switch to that tab.



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