As always, Mozilla started rolling out Firefox 90 for Android ahead of the official release on July 13, and we've already spotted quite a few changes on our own. But now the company's official changelog is up, filled with some more details on what's new in Firefox 90. Let's dive in.

Following major iconography changes in version 89 as part of a full desktop redesign, this release packs fewer novelties. From what we could see, there are only some minor settings tweaks, with the Firefox account settings moving further down and the Set as default browser toggle turning into a more prominent banner at the top. We've also spotted a new credit cards entry that, unsurprisingly, allows you to save payment methods to your browser and your Firefox account. You can add multiple cards, though right now, you can't give them nicknames to help you distinguish between them. To access your cards and autofill, you need to verify your identity via biometrics (if set up). You can find more details on Firefox' support pages.

Left: Firefox 89 settings. Middle: Firefox 90 settings. Right: Credit cards section.

In the privacy department, Mozilla has announced that it's making it easier to use Facebook to sign into third-party websites with SmartBlock v2. Prior to Firefox 90, you couldn't sign in with Facebook while in a private browsing session because the browser blocks Facebook's tracking cookies by default. While you might expect this behavior if you're a tech-savvy person, regular folks might just notice that the website they're trying to sign into is broken. To combat the problem, Firefox 90's new SmartBlock version recognizes when you try to log in with Facebook and will temporarily unblock the service's trackers to let you sign in. Mozilla is also working on improving the situation when you use the strict tracker blocking mode.

In more technical news, Firefox 90 enables the so-called back/forward cache (BFCache) for supported websites using unload event listeners, so you might notice that back and forward navigations are a bit faster on these. Additionally, FTP connections are completely dead in the latest version. Mozilla already turned off support for the File Transfer Protocol in Firefox 88, but it was possible to re-enable it via flags until now. That's no longer an option, as the underlying code has been removed completely in the stable version of desktop Firefox 90. To access FTP servers, you'll have to use a dedicated browser in the future, such as FileZilla.

Unfortunately, Mozilla hasn't added pull-to-refresh or any new officially supported add-ons to the Android release yet again, after not having changed the list for the last few versions. We can only hope that the situation will improve with upcoming releases. In the meantime, you'll still have to rely on Firefox Nightly to get access to more add-ons — here's how to set it up.

Firefox 90 for Android is starting to roll out in the Play Store, but if you want to get your hands on it right away, you can download it over at APK Mirror.

UPDATE: 2021/07/14 3:04am PDT BY MANUEL VONAU

Official changelog

Updated with details regarding back/forward cache and Facebook sign-ins from the official changelog.

Firefox Fast & Private Browser Developer: Mozilla
Price: Free
4.6
Download