Firefox update makes watching videos a more enjoyable experience
Mozilla is working on a new feature for its Firefox web browser: automatic picture-in-picture mode. It is currently available in Firefox Nightly 130 and could launch in Firefox Stable later this year.
Most modern web browsers support Picture-in-Picture mode. It allows users to display video content in a separate window on the system. Ideal for keeping an eye on the video while switching to another tab to do something else.
Up until now, activation of Picture-in-Picture mode was a manual affair. You had to click on the icon while hovering over the video to launch it.
Firefox would then display the video in its own window, and you could move it around, resize it, and control playback.
If you run the latest Firefox Nightly, currently at version 130, you may enable the newly added automatic Picture-in-Picture mode in the browser.
Once done, Firefox will launch a Picture-in-Picture window automatically when you play a video and switch away from its tab to another. Very handy to continue watching uninterrupted and without having to start the mode manually.
Here is how you enable it:
- Load about:preferences#experimental in the browser's address bar. You may also select Menu > Settings > Firefox Labs if you prefer to go there manually.
- Check the option Picture-in-Picture: auto-open on tab switch.
That is all to it. Firefox launches the mode automatically from that moment on whenever you switch to another tab.
Even better, when you go back to the tab of the video, Picture-in-Picture mode is ended automatically. Video playback resumes on the tab without any delays in that case.
The entire operation was fluent during tests.
Closing Words
Firefox users who play video content in the browser often may benefit from this. It does not really matter if you have used Picture-in-Picture mode before or not. It is an elegant solution that improves this special case for users of the browser.
It is too early to say whether this will be opt-in or opt-out. It is almost guaranteed however that Mozilla will implement a toggle to enable or disable the feature.
What about you? Do you use Picture-in-Picture mode? Would you use the automatic version if it would launch in your browser of choice? Feel free to leave a comment down below. (via Sören Hentzschel)
Long time FF user. Don’t need or want PIP. Please stop “improving” FF, unless improving means making it lean, stable, fast and secure. I do not need racing stripes and options on my car.
Couldn’t agree more. also “Picture-in-Picture” is cancer. Do we really need more ways in parallel to get more addicted to dopamine release??!
Agree. Just remove the growing flavours of telemetry, ads, trackers and profiling making up most of the bloat, and stop fooling the stupids with racing stripes and toggle pacifiers.
Cannot see myself ever wanting or using this.
If I watch a video, I watch it in fullscreen – always.
Also, wondering about the security aspect of something that follows you accross different tabs.
yes it does but it stop’s all of your add on’s they all stop working so don’t up date go back to 104.0 that works great and does not have the crook ai in it all so you see because of ai they had to shut it down for me to order any thing from amazion and wlamart and ebay so all of you can keep saying how great ai is but it is stealing your info has you use it go download wire shark and run it and you will see
I like pip, useful when scrolling on the same page without leaving the video out of view, BUTTTTT…. I hate it when it always opens pip window in the lower right corner, extremely annoying it can’t remember last position, also opening new tab in youtube it will not remember the pip position from another youtube tab.
I dislike the PIP feature, indeed I have never used it. Thanks for the article! :]
I very much detest the PIP my newspaper uses and I can’t turn it off.
thank Goddess it’s Mozilla and they give us the option to disable this shit.
No built-in PWA / SSB support, no Firefox.
You still don’t understand, that NOT supporting PWA/SSB is a security feature, do you ?
It’s people like you and those with a similar mindset (“f*ck security, I want nice looking features”), that at least contribute negatively to the sorry state of the current internet regarding security.
A remote application, camouflaging itself as a local application is NOT a secure thing.
I side with the people who never use PIP and who fail to understand how PIP (automatic or not) can make “watching videos a more enjoyable experience”. I cannot really concentrate on reading a text while also keeping an eye on a playing video. To put this in a wider perspective, I also am not able (when drving a car) to keep my eyes properly on the road, while at the same time searching the car’s touchscreen menu for AC settings or whatever. To me, it looks like designers (of browsers, car interfaces, whatever) tend to chronically overestimate human multitasking capabilities. Or would the basic design assumption be that it’s OK to do everything just superficially? I feel that’s a fundamental mistake.
I will give you something of my perspective then, I absolutely love pip mode. Especially use it for for music, when listening to a live concert while doing some work or reading for example. I have used it also before when watching knowledge videos and quickly googling something or doing it interactively so I try something with the person giving my an explanation (coding for example). Besides in browser I also use it while working in other applications but that’s besides the point.
I don’t use Picture-in-Picture mode myself. I even disable its various prefs here on Firefox.
As mush as I appreciate having a musical background (dozens of radio stations via the ‘Radio player’ Firefox extension) as much I cannot conceive surfing with a PIP in the background : any video is something I fully commit myself to.
When you’re running Firefox ESR (115 here) and you discover that latest versions offer or plan to offer new features, you may happen to feel sorry you’re not on the right highway. Not when it comes to PIP, for sure :)
I do use PiP and like how FF will let me have multiple pip’s open at once.
I do not however want them to open automatically as this is used for advertisiments.
Huge, this feature is Arc’s exclusive and now it’s Firefox’s
People cannot multi-task. PIP is useful only when viewing a movie loaded with advertising, but advertising works subliminally if you switch mental focus to something else.
PIP switching on automatically is an annoyance, definitely not something enjoyable. If I have music playing (e.g. Youtube), if switching tabs, all I really want is the sound as background. This is just the end result of a bunch of **** sitting around a table agreeing, “that’s a feature we can sell”.
Such a sign of the brain-rot trend creeping through society.
Maybe I am too much of a boomer (early 20s), but how can you honestly keep up with any task worth doing, with a video (that has moving content on screen!) that is also playing in the foreground?
Old man yells at cloud, I guess, but should browsers be integrating this highly superfluous stuff which 3rd party extensions/programs can recreate just as well if not better?
Better yet, pause the video (then come back to it when ready), or just listen to it, which usually works out well anyway, even for a lot of videos with video content. Again, the old man is yelling at the cloud, I doubt anyone will back me up on this.
I’m just annoyed that Firefox never does anything to make the history viewer better, it sucks so much, oh but this stuff is top priority… right…
Picture-in-Picture is pure cancer. Just more ways to get dopamine release, now x2 in parallel.
Boomers are people born immediately after World War 2, BTW. People in their 20s have no “cohort name”. They’re just…young.
@45 RPM,
On the internet, “boomer” is a term of endearment/insult, and used to refer to someone who views things in an old-fashioned manner, or is not-up-to-date on something. For example, you can say “I’m a boomer when it comes to tech”, if you’re rubbish with computers.
I know boomer originally meant a generation of people born after a certain time :)
Right on all counts.
Next comes ads in a browser, vertical and horizontal. Just like on TV. What more could one wish?
To everyone: If someone decides to migrate to Firefox and is not familiar with Firefox, there is no way to know what these settings should be. It should be read in dozens of forums, instead of every setting being the correct one by default…
Not really? You only need to know how to change something, when you actually want to change it.
Change nothing, use FF, come across something you don’t like, then look it up, which takes 5-10 minutes (for example, someone may not know that this video overlay crap is a referred to PIP popup).
Usually top or 2nd result will give you accurate instructions on what needs doing, unless your ability to Google is not great.