6.6.0 Beta 1 - ESR 140 beta: platform upgrade and modern web features

Waterfox 6.6.0 Beta 1 brings significant enhancements to web platform support, media handling, and user privacy. This release updates the underlying platform from version 128.0 to 140.0, incorporating twelve months of improvements including tab groups, profile management, enhanced translations, and vertical tabs. Beta testers will experience cutting-edge web technologies like WebGPU, experimental CSS features, and improved hardware acceleration alongside Waterfox-specific refinements to the user interface and privacy controls.

New Features

macOS Enhancements

• Tabs Toolbar Translucency: Added translucent tabs toolbar for macOS

Web Platform Support

• CSS Masonry Layout: Experimental CSS grid layout support
• Prioritized Task Scheduling API: Improved resource allocation for web pages
• DOM Experimental Features:
  • CloseWatcher support
  • H.265 video support in WebCodecs
  • Screen Orientation lock
  • Improved Shadow DOM selection
  • Web Notifications actions
• CSS Experimental Features:
  • shape() function support
  • font-variant-emoji property
  • @scope rule
  • Scroll-driven animations
• SVG Experimental Features:
  • SVG 2 getBBox support
  • Improved stroke bounds rendering

Media & Graphics

• VP8/VP9 Hardware Acceleration: Hardware-accelerated decoding for WebRTC video calls
• Media Autoplay Control: Enhanced control over media autoplay behaviour
• MathML Rendering: Updated Mathematical Markup Language rendering
• WebGPU Support: Full WebGPU API support including Web Workers
• Web Share API: Native OS sharing integration

WebRTC

• Enhanced Capabilities: Enabled PQ DTLS and VP9 simulcast

Improvements

User Interface

• UI Customisation: Refined menubar styling and tab bar positioning
• Default Proton Colours: System accent colour integration
• Default Bookmarks: Updated to feature Waterfox-related links
• Smooth Scrolling: Alternative smooth scroll physics implementation

Network & Performance

• POST Request Efficiency: Enabled idempotency-key headers
• Cookie Handling: CHIPS and schemeful SameSite cookie support
• Network Optimisations:
  • Disabled requests to 0.0.0.0
  • HTTP/3 ECN marking and IP family retry support
  • HTTP retry with half-open connections
• Windows Keyboard Layouts: On-demand loading for improved efficiency
• Rendering Performance: Dynamic reflow roots enabled

Privacy & Security

• Reduced Mobile Promotions: Disabled mobile-related promotional banners
• New Tab Page: Removed search shortcuts from Top Sites
• Extension Security: Blocked picker opening from hidden extension pages
• Pointer Event Security: W3C Pointer Events restricted to secure contexts
• macOS Input: Ctrl-click no longer defaults to right-click

Platform Changes (128.0 to 140.0)

These are the changes that have occured to the underlying platform bewteen the release of v6.5 and v6.6.

Version 129.0 (6 August 2024)

• HTTPS-First Mode enabled by default
• Reader View: Added character/word spacing, text alignment, contrast themes
• Offline translation via downloadable language packs
• Android: Improved page load performance

Version 130.0 (3 September 2024)

• Partial text translation after full-page translation
• Picture-in-Picture auto-open (experimental)
• Linux: Overscroll animations enabled by default
• Web Codecs API for desktop platforms

Version 131.0 (1 October 2024)

• Temporary permissions: Auto-removal after 1 hour or tab closure
• Swedish language translation support
• CHIPS cookie support and enhanced SameSite requirements
• Linux: Improved HiDPI support with GTK3 font scaling

Version 132.0 (29 October 2024)

• Wide Colour Gamut WebGL (Windows/macOS)
• macOS: Screen/window sharing selection, automatic session resume
• Strict tracking protection: All third-party cookies blocked
• Post-quantum key exchange for TLS 1.3
• Removed: HTTP/2 Push

Version 133.0 (26 November 2024)

• Bounce Tracking Protection in Strict mode
• Sidebar access to tabs from other devices
• Windows: Canvas2D switched from Direct2D to platform-independent backends

Version 134.0 (7 January 2025)

• Linux: Touchpad gestures with kinetic scrolling interruption
• Windows: HEVC hardware-accelerated playback
• New Tab layout refresh
• Relaxed popup blocking following HTML specifications

Version 135.0 (4 February 2025)

• Translation support: Simplified Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Russian
• Credit card autofill global rollout
• Certificate transparency enforcement and CRLite checking
• “Do Not Track” replaced with Global Privacy Control

Version 136.0 (4 March 2025)

• Sidebar: Quick access to bookmarks, history, synced tabs
• Vertical tabs: Alternative tab layout option
• HTTPS-First for all page loads with HTTP fallback
• Smartblock: Selective social media content unblocking
• UK address autofill
• macOS: Background tab power optimisation, HEVC hardware acceleration
• Linux: AMD GPU hardware video decoding

Version 137.0 (1 April 2025)

• Tab Groups: Organise tabs with names, colours, save/reopen
• Address Bar Refresh:
  • Unified search buttons
  • Search term persistence
  • Contextual search modes (@bookmarks, @tabs, @history, @actions)
  • Calculator functionality
• PDF: Automatic link identification and signing
• Linux: HEVC support

Version 138.0 (29 April 2025)

• Profile Management: Separate profiles with custom names, avatars, themes
• Windows 11: Acrylic-style menus
• macOS/Linux: Copy links from background tabs

Version 139.0 (27 May 2025)

• Full-page translation for extension pages (moz-extension://)
• Custom New Tab wallpapers with Celestial category
• HTTP/3 upload performance improvements
• PNG transparency preservation when copying
• Temporal API for date handling
• Chrome migration: CSV export/import required for passwords/payment methods

Version 140.0 (24 June 2025)

• Tab unloading capabilities
• Vertical tabs enhancements
• Extensions button customisation
• Private browsing security improvements