Firefox 123 is out with broken site reporting tool
Mozilla Firefox 123.0 is the new Stable version of the open source web browser. The official release date is February 20, 2024. Mozilla releases Firefox 115.8 ESR on the same day.
Firefox 123 includes just a few changes and features. The major feature in the release is a new tool to report broken websites directly to Mozilla.
All development builds of Firefox are updated around the same time as well. Firefox Beta and Development builds move to version 124 and Firefox Nightly makes the jump to version 125. Firefox for Android follows the versioning scheme of the Stable desktop version; it too gets the update to version 123.0.
I have installed Firefox 123.0 on a test system to review all of its changes and features.
Executive Summary
- Mozilla introduces a new website compatibility report tool in Firefox that Firefox users may use to report broken sites to the organization.
- Tooltips and form controls text is now also translated by Firefox's integrated translation feature.
- Firefox View information may now be searched.
- Known Issue: Firefox on machines with older AMD processors may render thumbnails as "all black" in file dialogs. Mozilla suggests updating the graphics driver to address the issue.
Firefox 123.0 download and update
Most Firefox installations receive updates automatically thanks to the built-in updating.
Note: our review is published before the official release. The updates will become later on the day of publication.
Firefox users who do not want to wait for the update to roll out to their system may speed up the installation. This is done through manual update checks.
Select Firefox Menu > Help > About Firefox to run a manual update check. Firefox should pick up the update and install it on the device.
Here are the official download locations:
- Firefox Stable download
- Firefox Beta download
- Nightly download
- Firefox ESR download
- Firefox for Android on Google Play
Firefox 123.0 major changes
Report broken site
The main new feature that Mozilla introduces in Firefox 123.0 is a report tool. Users of the Firefox web browser may report broken sites to Mozilla. The main idea behind the feature is to help Mozilla address compatibility issues in Firefox.
Firefox has a much smaller userbase than the Chromium-based browsers. Multiple companies, including Google and Microsoft, find and deal with compatibility issues in the Chromium source.
The new reporting tool involves the Firefox community. Select Firefox Menu > Report broken site to open the reporting tool. Select a reason, e.g., site slow or not working, ad blockers, or sign-in or sign-out and hit the send button. You may add text to the report, which you should do to provide additional details that describe the issue that you experience on the site.
Mozilla announces the new website compatibility reporter in the following way: "Having any issues with a website on Firefox, yet the site seems to be working as expected on another browser? You can now let us know via the Web Compatibility Reporting Tool! By filing a web compatibility issue, you’re directly helping us detect, target, and fix the most impacted sites to make your browsing experience on Firefox smoother."
Other changes and fixes
- Firefox translates website tooltips, e.g., when hovering over images, and text displayed in form controls now as well. Mozilla launched Firefox's native translate feature in Firefox 117.
- Firefox View, accessible via the dedicated button in the top left corner of the browser's interface, supports search now. This allows you to find open, closed, or tabs from other devices quickly.
- Address bar settings are now fond in the Search section in Firefox's Settings.
Developer changes
- The <template> element now supports a shadowrootmode attribute that allows declarative creation of a shadow DOM subtree.
- The <linearGradient> and <radialGradient> SVG elements now support changing the color space.
- Firefox supports the 103 Early Hints HTTP information response status code for preloading resources now.
- The Web Authentication API now supports cross-origin credential creation.
- Addition of fhe contextualIdentities.move function enables items to be moved in the list of contextual identities.
- The new Save Response As option of the Network Monitor allows saving a response body to the local system. It replaces the "Save Image" context menu option, as it only supported saving images.
Enterprise changes
Firefox 123 includes just three Enterprise changes:
- Mozilla addressed an issue with the background updater on systems with multiple user accounts. The tool updates "now properly" according to Mozilla. The bug report provides additional information. According to the report, the background update task did not run if the user who installed Firefox on the machine was not logged in.
- The Preferences policy allows setting the type of a preference using Type. This addresses the issue that Integer preferences with values 0 or 1 were set as Boolean previously.
- The UserMessaging policy has been updated to also control whether the translation feature is advertised to users in a popup.
Security updates / fixes
The aggregate severity rating of the patched security issues is high. Mozilla fixed a total of 12 security issues in Firefox. Not all address existing security vulnerabilities, some improve Firefox defenses by closing bugs that could potentially be exploited by malicious actors.
You can check out the full list of fixes here.
Outlook
Firefox 124 and Firefox ESR 115.9 will be released on March 19, 2024
Recent Firefox news and tips
- Mozilla has a new CEO.
- After taking over the reigns, Mozilla's new CEO switched the organization's business strategy. Core focus is now Firefox and AI.
Additional information / resources
- Firefox 123 release notes
- Firefox 123 for Developers
- Firefox 123 for Enterprise
- Firefox Security Advisories
- Firefox Release Schedule
Closing Words
The introduction of the web compatibility reporter tool could help improves Firefox's overall web compatibility. It may help Mozilla prioritize development and may point at issues that the developers and engineers were not aware of.
There is a chance that Mozilla may get flooded with generic reports though.
Now You: did you run into compatibility issues lately in Firefox?
Mozilla the best.
@bruh, > “Again, just a misinformed understanding of how a “browser” works (…).”
Talking about FF, in this case mainly of how a browser doesn’t work. Mainly. Because I don’t need to know how something works to use it properly with no broken sites…
John, which part of my [#comment-4580532] are you having difficulty in comprehending?
The majority of websites that aren’t displaying correctly for you, are likely malformed; you should be complaining to the people whom actually built the said website(s) wrong with malformed code.
Let’s say I have a perfectly fine working petrol chainsaw; I completely empty the fuel tank, but refill it to the brim with water, and hand it to you. Then ask you try starting it; to cut me some logs, whilst it was in that state – do you think it would successfully saw through those logs.
Chromium-based browsers have a huge dominance. Thus, in many cases the people making those malformed websites aren’t going to bother doing much cross-browser testing for other engines. Nor alter their incompetent web design practices. Because they know they can usually get away with murder, e.g. writing “tag soup”, shoddy code and proprietary hacks, hoping it sort of works in one browser engine.
@John G. You are a windows user? Windows comes with edge preinstalled not with Firefox preinstalled . So you installed Firefox at your on free will, a browser that breaks websites. Why don’t you just uninstall Firefox, MS Windows will happily alow you to do so. You will feel more at rest without Firefox and broken websites.
Firefox/Librewolf on Linux here… no broken sites.
I wish you and your family all the best, but know, no healthy planet… no farming no food
@John G., why such stubbornness? Firefox works perfectly well, here and elsewhere. Old duo-core PC, over 60 extensions, scripts, userChromeJS scripts, user styles… and all runs perfectly well, Firefox is fast, lean, not one issue, opens instantly, no RAM nor CPU issues. I don’t know what the heck you and other anti-Mozilla/Firefox warriors are complaining about, never understood, but at the end it becomes as annoying as kids yelling in the backyard.
@Tom Hawack….said,
“I don’t know what the heck you and other anti-Mozilla/Firefox warriors are complaining about, never understood, but at the end it becomes as annoying as kids yelling in the backyard…”
….or the like neighborhood dog barking endlessly into the night.
Lol
As a very, very long time user of Mozilla Firefox ” ESR ” on
Windows and Linux, I never quite got the FF Bashing. For me, I have always tried other browsers, I always end up back where I started….Firefox.
Presently, haven’t used Windows for years, and strictly a Linux user, besides FF, I recommend LibreWolf and Falkon as browsers.
Cheers, Tom.
Hi @Rush!,
Kids are worse, at least you can give a good kick in the ribs when it comes to the barking dog. Just joking, lol! : I love dogs, animals, perhaps not more than humans though I happen to understand Brigitte Bardot’s openly stated preference for animals when she mentions that confronted to a burning house she’d save the animals before the humans because “animals are much more vulnerable than humans” … I admit some form of misanthropy.
I read you. Makes me wonder if using Firefox on Windows is not somewhat comparable to pouring ketchup on a T-Bone, no need to say Windows being the ketchup. Linux is increasingly forging its way in my mind as the new OS horizon is approaching : what will it be after my old Windows 7?
Cheers Rush, all the best.
Brigitte Bardot…?
Lol, I bet most commenters hovering while fluttering here over Martin’s article about FF are wondering…
Brigitte Bardot? Who dat?
At the time and as for me, a kid entering puberty…she (ahem) was quite the
( sixties term ) ” dish ” or in your neighborhood, ” plat “.
I remember visiting my friend from grade school whom sneaked a LIFE Magazine photo shoot out of the house…. to the back of the garage. I had my introduction to the original sex-kitten, Brigitte….
Those good ‘ol days of growing up….
Warm regards.
@Paul, @Tom Hawack, @Squeeze P, I don’t know the reason of why I can’t say a single bad thing about FF. First of all I have installed FF in my two laptops because it’s the only browser that works completely fine with the PDF/XFA files without Adobe. Second, I use FF first before trying Chrome in those official sites that work with Java Webstart or whatever its name, it’s Java JRE I think. And third, I use FF in those official sites that worked fine ALWAYS for me with FF and help me to save time. It’s easy to understand that FF nowadays it’s not the old and trustable FF with less options about privacy (indeed a website can get broke easily simply enabling the default security and privacy option). It’s easy to understand also the fiasco when a site stopped working fine from one day to another, or with a simply update that destroys your profile, or some other issues. In fact I think that after read your comments I am doing something wrong using FF, because it seems that if I use FF I have only the rigth to close my mouth when something goes wrong. You are a bad user if you complain, don’t you?
FF is very good, however when it fails the failure is so gross that you will notice in all your mind. Be serious, please, a program should work fine. Period. Broken websites those days are unnaceptable at all, mostly considering that AI could prevent loading them, or fixing them in the air. Users can complain, because complaining means that a software is used, tested, valuated and whatever you can consider. Nobody is complaining now about Netscape, because it doesn’t exist anymore, however in those older times my father complained a lot about it (with no success, Netscape never got better). The difference between a fanboy and a simply user is not as easy to understand, mostly here. However, I have understood that I am a FF user so from now everything will be completely fine. Broken sites? Never more, they all will work at first instance, with or without the help of Chrome as the secondary friend that is paying the Mozilla wages. Crude and real.
John, if the word “Brave” of “Firefox” or another (insert Browser vendor name of choice) appears in an article. There are some individuals’ comments that come across like they are suffering from a ‘personality disorder’. Personal attacks galore aimed at the individual’s specific username… instead of focusing on the subject at hand. It’s like light the (blue) touchpaper for them.
I am just a dumb girl… a waitress in dead-end job. Nonetheless, I don’t do such petty things. I will, analyse people’s comments, which I may or may not agree with, so I will be addressing someone’s argument or position.
The reason I never mentioned the word “Firefox” prior to this post is because it could have been any modern “standards compliant” mainstream browser vendor. When I said “[…] you cannot blame the browser…” I was actually meaning a ‘User Agent’ and not any specific browser in particular.
A valid Web page is not necessarily a good web page, but an invalid Web page has little chance of being a good web page.
I also stated within Comment [#4580532], that website had both faulty and invalid code. In the majority of cases; it’s the website code (or content) that is at fault rather than the browser. Also within Comment [#4580647], I said in most cases it was the website designer at fault rather than the browser.
Regarding Java JRE, that technology framework is deprecated; again that’s not the browser at fault. Google Chrome, Firefox, Safari, Microsoft Edge and Opera no longer support JRE.
Are you finally starting to see the bigger picture yet, it’s typically the websites that are using proprietary nonsense, and not following web interoperability standards or good coding and design practices that cause these types of issues.
Browser rendering engines are also extremely complex partly due to having to deal with rubbish website code. AI certainly could not magically fix the design of such poorly designed websites either. Because it doesn’t understand the context, it’s just a mindless-imitator.
On a branch there is a fruit, plump and ripe for sucking. In a bed there is a body, hot and ripe for…
@Squeeze P, latest versions of Firefox and Chrome works with Java actually, I use it almost twice per week. And Java works better wuth Firefox indeed.
@John G. “Be serious, please, a program should work fine.”. This wording is the whole point, be it in whoever’s comment, and it’s something I very often meet, on the Web as in life : considering our very experience with a product as an argument to validate or invalidate the product. Why not say “In my experience the product fails”? Moreover when many other users don’t encounter the bad issues — or good facts — as those you mention, asserting the product as being bad or good in a universalist tone and wording is in a way ridiculous.
@ Tom Hawack
‘I don’t know what the heck you and other anti-Mozilla/Firefox warriors are complaining about, never understood, but at the end it becomes as annoying as kids yelling in the backyard.’
Strange comparison, those kids are playing learning how to communicate learning how to interact how to behave and make friends.
Degrading them to the same level as anti-Mozilla/Firefox warriors is a insult to the kids and the future ;)
@Paul, an “annoying” fact doesn’t mean considering it as illegitimate. When parents get waked up 3 times in the night by a baby’s cries it is definitely annoying, doesn’t mean they’ll try to put an end to it by gagging the new born child :) It’s just a pain in the neck. And the pain goes increasing as the kid gets older and starts to be autonomous … as kids in the backyard, yelling when they could be simply laughing.
I personally wouldn’t even imagine censoring — or suggesting to be censored — comments I consider annoying for reasons I consider legitimate, but I think it’s one’s right to express one’s irritation concerning comments as it is the right of commenters to express whatever they wish (or almost), should it be as kids in the backyard.
There’s what you say and the way you say it, right? In my view it’s often less what you say than the way you say it, and yelling again and again the same blabla — mainly because it’s the fashion — becomes truly annoying. What do you want me to avoid, or to express : “Hey kids, carry on yelling, good to know you’re communicating”, or “Hey kids, calm down”, or just let them live their lives without bringing my part to their education? My option is the latter, which is to let them be but in respect of the terms of decency : “less loudly, you rascals!” :)
When I updated FF to 123 today I found that they installed a search engine called Freespoke. What the hell is up with that? I don’t want any search engine on my computer installed without my knowledge….
Hey, Martin, any chance ghacks will bring back the favicon? It helps with my bookmarks.
Yeah, this is really weird to lose a favicon like that. It does help with spotting the site quickly in the list of bookmarks. Seems like it’s been missing for a couple of months now.
It’s almost as if someone is actively going out of their way to tailor the internet based around their own tech and favor their own browser to feed their own agenda.
I will take hijacking web standards for 400 Trebeck.
i also am not seeing “report broken site” in the FF menu.
>Select Firefox Menu > Report broken site to open the reporting tool.
I do not see this option in the Firefox Menu.
The ‘Report broken site’ option is not available if in Firefox Settings\ Privacy & Security\ Firefox Data Collection and Use the option “Allow Firefox to send technical and interaction data to Mozilla” is disabled.
ah thats why I cant see it, thank you kindly for the reply.
The idea of reporting a broken website was initially proposed at Reddit in 2019:
https://www.reddit.com/r/firefox/comments/asbqm1/feature_idea_report_broken_website/?rdt=60175
I don’t see the option in the FF menu neither. :S
Firefox is my main. Check console ouput. I encounter websites that have overzealous CORS related settings. page does not load correctly. I figure it’s my add-ons, toggle em off maybe it betterfox: try safe mode. nope try new profile, nope.open up the page in a chrome clone and it works. websites developers put more focus on chrome because most of the basic b****es use it.
Whatever happened to the friendly, thanks for the article Martin :], John G.
You’re right, my bad of course. I feel unlucky these days due to bad news around my family. Indeed Firefox is having me again a lot of troubles too, so I am certainly not in my best friendly stage. :[
The current ESR version is 115.7. Shouldn’t the upcoming one be 115.8 instead of 115.9?
You are right, thank you!
Broken websites? Just fix your f****** engine you bunch of good for nothing people! How can you waste the air breathing while your sad browser is having broken websites all around? You good for nothing! Is Google paying you all to destroy FF from inside?
Thanks @Martin for the article. :]
Feeling better now, John G.? But wipe that foam from your mouth. BTW, Firefox is FOSS, so why don’t you contribute instead of ranting and raving and uttering foul language?
Thanks for the article, Martin.
@Gerard, Chrome has no broken sites for me. No issue found, never. A tool to inform FF of a broken site is just as to say “oh, dude, your browser is unable to open this site, while all the others can”, so do you think it’s serious, really? Foul language, after done a complete out of the box installation just to notice that a banking site was unable to work under FF ESR but Chrome was OK? Uttering language could be, for example, “broken sites, like broken are my b****!”. Just my opinion. So please calm down a little, as I did.
@John G. – >”Chrome has no broken sites for me.”
If you ever go to the Chrome Help forum, they have enormous numbers of broken sites being reported all the time. “No broken sites” is not a title Chrome/chromium can claim, not even close. You should feel quite fortunate that your small collection of sites is working well on their browser.
@Andy Prough, I didn’t say that all sites are not broken by Chrome, I said that the sites that I visit are fine under Chrome. In fact all were fine even under FF ESR (till pasr week only, and one of them is still broken).
John, with all due respect, are you OK?
What purpose do you think FF has for introducing a “broken site reporting tool”. Do you think they introduced this feature because they don’t want to fix broken websites?
Public complains of lots of pot-holes on the road, local council opens a phone line for reporting pot-holes – and you complain!
How are they supposed to get a grasp of what’s broken and what’s not, if people don’t report it?
@bruh > “How are they supposed to get a grasp of what’s broken and what’s not, if people don’t report it?”
The best idea is to build a better browser’s engine with the highest compatibility as possible.
@John G
“The best idea is to build a better browser’s engine with the highest compatibility as possible.”
Incredibly childish opinion, seems you have no idea how this stuff works – you can’t make an engine with the “highest compatibility” without knowing what that entails. it’s not 1998 any more, browsers are not simple unfortunately and websites are not simple, there are tons of different frameworks and modules and things that people use – there’s new ones coming out all the time as well.
Firefox is already compatible with all the normal, standard stuff – we’re talking about new things here.
@bru, > “Incredibly childish opinion, seems you have no idea how this stuff works (…)”.
My opinions could be childish a lot, however you don’t explain why Chrome has no the same problems of broken websites and other rendering issues. Maybe the childish here are the own FF ways to face the websites? I meant, if I have no problems at all with Chrome and I have broken sites with FF (even more, with the ESR branch), who is the culprit? Myself? Sorry about that, I am an user, they are a corporation/foundation or whatever.
that’s simple and the same reason as during the Internet Explorer times: web developers use just 1 browser for testing and that’s the one with the major market share: in the past Internet Explorer, currently Chrome. The make sure that their stuff works in that browser and that’s it. If it’s conforming to standards or not doesn’t matter. The result is that one browser seemingly seems to work everywhere and every other rendering engine has to play catch up and fix “problems” even if they are 100% standards compliant and the cause of the problem is located in the flawed source.
Firefox with Gecko is (next to Safari with the aging Webkit) the only browser engine left next to Blink. This means if Firefox dies, Google has a de facto monopoly on browser rendering engines. While I (in contrast to many others) don’t hate Google, that’s still an unpleasant idea, as monopoly always constitutes a problem and should be avoided.
@John G,
I don’t need to add anything, @anonymous said everything perfectly. Again, just a misinformed understanding of how a “browser” works or is developed.
Broken websites, when opened with Firefox? Haven’t encountered any ever since Firefox 2.0 … nevertheless users may visit more different websites than I do, and broken websites is definitely an issue, though perhaps exaggerating this problem, as if it were specific to Firefox, is not fair. Moreover, as noted in the article, “Multiple companies, including Google and Microsoft, find and deal with compatibility issues in the Chromium source.”
—
Just updated Firefox ESR to 115.8.0. Seems slightly snappier, but this may very well be an effect of my imagination:
“Imagination is funny,
It makes a cloudy day sunny,
Makes a bee think of honey,
Just as I think of you ….” (her!)
Go, Firefox, Go GO GO! But not away!
@Tom Hawack, great music choice. First MM now Chet B. keep on keeping the positive swing in thees negative reply’s around FF. Respect
@Paul, I always have Dean Martin in mind when I hear, sing this song, ‘Imagination’, Dean Martin and other crooners I’ve always been fond of, for the entertainment, for the sexy mood they carry. An era of the past.
–
Remaining positive is not always obvious, especially when facing negativism. And when ourselves happen to be negative and meet negative comments/persons then that’s when the clash may occur. Clashes are often if not always the result of multiple factors occurring simultaneously. I guess the idea is that more there is electricity in the air, more we should strive to remain “un-electrified” so to say … life is eternal school from which you never graduate.
Thanks for your positive state of mind translated by positive words, to others as to myself. Never change that.
@Tom Hawack, > “Broken websites, when opened with Firefox? Haven’t encountered any ever since Firefox 2.0”.
I think that you are very fortunate, because broken websites are one of the most indexed searching words in Google (3.35M results). Anyway it’s fine feeling like Christopher Lambert in the Highlander, using a sword instead a mouse. Not such my best joke, sorry about that.
Indeed, for example, I had this same issue and nothing was fixed by FF still since then:
https://www.reddit.com/r/Aliexpress/comments/170b7bu/why_is_my_page_broken_using_firefox/?rdt=65356
@John G. Sorry to hear about the bad news around your family.
Your reply to Tom H.
I think that you are very fortunate. Well then there are at leased 2 fortunate ones, no broken websites here on Firefox.
@Paul, thank you very much for your kind words about my family. My parents are farmers and here in Europe things are not going good at all. The fields are in war with seversl strikes and the economic future seems terrible. :[
The AliExpress website CSS Style sheets are malformed; you cannot blame the browser for not being able to render either the invalid CSS content (or invalid markup) as might be expected. Check it with a validator: [https://validator.w3.org/] and [https://jigsaw.w3.org/css-validator/].
That malformed content was written for the AliExpress website: rubbish in, rubbish out.
If a browser encounters a CSS declaration or rule it doesn’t understand, it just skips it completely without applying it or throwing an error.
Furthermore, you can always choose to disable or override author style sheets.
What?