fidzu : thunderbird

In the last update, the team shared ongoing work around removing technical jargon and adopting plain language so everyone can navigate settings with ease. Those initial content refinements have rolled out into Thunderbird already (v160).

Following those copy updates, the team ran research to evaluate how settings information is structured. Below is a breakdown of what the data revealed, how those findings shaped an interactive prototype, and the plan for incremental rollout.

If you don't have time to read the full research summary, here are the key points. We had an overwhelming response to the research study, so we have feedback from many different perspectives and use cases. Some of the new organization of categories weren't as easy to find because of the language or because it was too hidden, so we've updated those and it's reflected in the new prototype linked below.

Research overview

Who took part in the study

• 381 community members
• 42 countries represented
• 88% use Thunderbird on a daily basis

About the structure of the study

To evaluate the proposed information architecture, the team conducted a tree test.

A tree test evaluates a text-only hierarchy with no visual styling. It isolates structure from visual design, reveals the exact navigation paths taken to complete a task, and saves development effort by validating organization before code is written. The scenarios that we tested alongside the tree test focused on key areas users have been bringing up as things they change often or have been confused about in the past.

However, there are trade-offs: without visual cues (icons, layout, color), success rates in tree tests are often artificially lower than in a functional app. Crucially, a tree test cannot simulate an active search bar, a primary navigation method for many participants. That is why testing an interactive prototype is the next step.

What worked well

• Appearance: Locating appearance-level preferences was straightforward for roughly 60% of respondents (though some initially checked Themes, expecting menu and button colors there).

• App updates: Update controls were well understood within the test, with most participants noting they typically check version details via Help > About.

• Set up mobile: Located successfully by most participants. However, those looking for account sync preferences frequently navigated to Synchronization & Storage.

What needs improvement

• Global vs. Account settings: Participants voiced frustration with a rigid divide between Global Preferences and Account Settings. Switching back and forth depending on whether an option applies to one account or the whole app feels disjointed.
  • "My only concern is that you seem to be keeping 'Settings' and 'Accounts' separate… they should be merged or use a separator on the same page."
  • "I continue to be bemused by the strong separation of settings and account settings."

• Category naming misalignment: Having dedicated top-level categories for Calendar and Chat, while categorizing core email behavior under Composition, created confusion. High confusion also surfaced with the difference between Appearance, Themes, and Add-ons & Themes as there is overlap.
  • "Calendar setting seems a bit odd, as there isn't 'Mail', 'Contacts', or 'News' sections. Where are their settings?"

• Ambiguous Labels: Labeling a section "New Features" left participants unsure whether it contained release notes or experimental settings. Suggestions strongly favored clearer, purpose-driven labels like Thunderbird Labs or Experimental Features.

• Search dependency: A significant group, particularly power users and Linux desktop users, noted that manual category browsing is a secondary option. The primary workflow is jumping straight to the search bar. While search cannot be tested within a tree test framework, this reinforces search as a first-class feature in modern settings.

Feedback from participants who provided detailed qualitative comments:

• ~35% shared positive reactions, citing intuitive grouping and clearer organization.
• ~20% expressed resistance to change, emphasizing the need for stability, preservation of traditional menu workflows, reliable dark mode support, and caution against redesigning elements without functional improvement.

Turning feedback into design decisions

We've taken all that feedback into consideration and designed a lightweight prototype that uses a new way to structure the information. Some folks might not notice the new changes, but we hope this makes discovery easy for new users while maintaining the flexibility our user base values.

You'll also notice the prototype doesn't have all the functionality built in so some things might not work, nor does it adapt to your operating system so it displays specific language appropriate for macOS, Windows or Linux.

Test the prototype

What's next

One area deliberately not tackled in this prototype is the split between Account Settings and Global Settings. Bridging that gap requires deeper architectural changes. To avoid over-complicating this iteration, changes are being kept incremental.

Overhauling settings across a mature application cannot happen in a single, disruptive release. Each functional piece will include direct avenues for testing and feedback before graduating to beta and stable channels.

Thank you to everyone who took part and contributed such thoughtful feedback.

The post From Research to Prototype: Testing the New Desktop Settings appeared first on The Thunderbird Blog.

10 Nov 2026 3:10pm GMT

Whether you're heading home to see family this winter or taking a well-earned break before the year wraps up, we want you to browse with a little more peace of mind. That's why, as our gift to you, everyone using Firefox's free built-in VPN gets unlimited data starting today, November 10, through January 31, 2027. Sign in with a Mozilla account and unlock extra privacy for all that shopping, travel planning, and everyday browsing, no gift receipt required.

Using Firefox's free built-in VPN makes it harder for websites to use your IP address to determine where you are, or connect your visits across the web. Most importantly, you're not trading your browsing data for that protection: Firefox doesn't sell your browsing data, interrupt you with ads, or keep a record of the websites you visit.

You can use VPN to:

• Keep the sites you visit private on shared Wi-Fi. You might use café Wi-Fi to check your itinerary, or look up something you'd prefer to keep to yourself while at a relative's house. Turning on VPN helps hide the sites you're visiting from whoever runs those Wi-Fi networks so your browsing habits stay your own.
• Change your browsing location. Firefox's built-in VPN lets you change where your connection appears to come from, making it easy to check news from home while abroad.

Two things to remember:

1. VPN doesn't make you anonymous online or hide browsing history on your device. Websites can recognize you through cookies or when you sign into an account. Use Private Window to browse without logging new visits in your Firefox history.
2. Firefox's built-in VPN only covers browsing within Firefox. For protection across other apps on your device, check out Mozilla VPN (a separate, paid subscription service).

Firefox's free built-in VPN is available to people using Firefox on desktop and Android (iOS is coming soon!). To start using the service:

• Sign up for a Mozilla account if you don't yet have one.
• Select the VPN icon in Firefox's toolbar on desktop or open the three-dot menu and go to Settings > VPN on your Android device.
• Follow the setup prompts, turn on VPN, and start browsing.

You can check for availability in your region and review full instructions for using VPN on desktop and Android in our Help Center.

Download Firefox to try it out today.

The post Firefox's free built-in VPN uncaps data limit through January 2027 appeared first on The Mozilla Blog.

10 Nov 2026 2:00pm GMT

Servo 0.7.0 contains all of the changes we landed in September, spanning 527 commits!

The developer tools console now eagerly evaluates JS inputs, allowing faster feedback (@freyacodes, #47527).

We've shipped new web platform features:

• the :checked pseudoclass (@skyz1, #47987)
• the user-select property (@SimonSapin, @mrobinson, #48137, #48242)
• the <progress> element (@rayguo17, #46974)
• CSS typed arithmetic (@Loirooriol, #48338)
• the alpha() CSS function (@Loirooriol, #48344)
• the font-width property (@Loirooriol, #47914)

Plus a bunch of new DOM APIs:

• parentRule on CSSRule and CSSStyleDeclaration (@skyz1, #47743)
• version on HTMLHtmlElement (@SilvioPilato, #47786)
• getComposedRanges() and direction on Selection (@mrobinson, #47683)
• baseURL on CSSStyleSheet (@Gae24, #47783)
• CSS modules(@Gae24, #47813) and text modules (@Gae24, #47863)
• getContextAttributes() on CanvasRenderingContext2D and OffscreenCanvasRenderingContext2D (@Taym95, #47868)
• the Content-Language header (@TimvdLippe, #47930)
• dir on Document (@yezhizhen, #48170)
• SVGAElement, SVGPatternElement, SVGTSpanElement, SVGTextContentElement, SVGTextElement, SVGTextPositioningElement (@mu-mostafa98, #48174)
• the MLKEM768-X25519 algorithm for WebCrypto (@kkoyung, #48240, #48282, #48313, #48350)
• roundRect() on CanvasRenderingContext2D (@yezhizhen, #48293)
• paintTime and presentationTime on PerformancePaintTiming (@shubhamg13, #47926)
• getCueAsHTML() on VTTCue (@TimvdLippe, #48146)

Security

We upgraded to SpiderMonkey v153.3 and mozangle v0.7, both of which included fixes for security bugs reported upstream (@sagudev, #48176, #47655, #48259).

Real world compat

The egui.rs demo now works as expected with --pref dom._webegpu_enabled.

This Candy Crush game is now playable.

We're interested to hear how well your favourite websites run in Servo! Report successes in this Zulip thread or this Github discussion, and failures in our GitHub issues.

Work in progress

Our accessibility tree (--pref accessibility_enabled) now reports geometry bounds for inline elements (@alice, #47905) and does much less work when responding to DOM changes (@alice, @mrobinson, #47690). Additionally, elements with display: none are reported as hidden (@alice, #47772).

We had lots of conformance improvements for our WebGL2 implementation (--pref dom_webgl2_enabled) (@mxmgorin, #48423, #48441, #48470, #48479, #48495, #48473, #48536).

Support for WSIWYG editors (which rely heavily on contenteditable) is going very well: keyboard inputs are now hooked up when --pref dom_exec_command_enabled is present, so many editors are now usable (example).

Closed captioning for video elements is making progress. Text tracks now fire enter, exit, and cuechange events (@TimvdLippe, #47725). Media elements now return the full sorted list of text tracks (@TimvdLippe, #47785), and adding cues to a text track now sets that track correctly (@TimvdLippe, #48012). Text track objects now reflect the attributes of the associated <track> element. Text track URLs are fetched at the correct time (@TimvdLippe, #48325), and active cues are computed correctly (@TimvdLippe, #48305), while text track cues are ordered as expected (@TimvdLippe, #48368). Additionally, WebVTT parsing can now recover from errors (@TimvdLippe, #48391).

The Sanitizer API (--pref dom_sanitizer_enabled) now accepts the javascriptURLs property (@skyz1, #47867).

IndexedDB continues to improve: tables no longer error if unrelated tables contain duplicate index names (--pref dom_indexeddb_enabled) (@leowatts, #47936). Additionally, we implemented openCursor() and openKeyCursor() on IDBIndex (@kuntal-devrat, #48281), as well as advance(), continue(), and continuePrimaryKey() on IDBCursor (@kuntal-devrat, #48400).

We implemented the getTimeline() and setTimeline() methods for the Animation interface (--pref dom_web_animations_enabled) (@simonwuelker, #48122).

Embedding API

There's a new API for events originating from accessibility tools: Servo::forward_accessibility_action (@alice, @mrobinson, #48512).

There is also an API to clear session history: WebView::clear_session_history (@Narfinger, #47483).

The WebView::set_throttled API has been removed (@mrobinson, #39923). Throttling automatically occurs when a WebView is hidden and is stopped when shown.

The WebViewDelegate::notify_focus_changed method was removed, along with the Servo methods focus and blur (@mrobinson, #48364). Embedders must call WebView::set_focused whenever a WebView has gained or lost system focus.

The webgl feature has been added to the default_web_features feature (@janeoa, #47866). If an embedding does not want to ship with WebGL support they will now need to disable default features.

Multiprocess mode is enabled at build time with the new Cargo feature multprocess (@Narfinger, #47360). To remove support for this feature (reducing binary size by ~2MB), build Servo with default features disabled.

Two new preferences exist to tune garbage collector behaviour: js_mem_gc_malloc_threshold_base_mb and js_mem_gc_urgent_threshold_mb (@mxmgorin, #47999). These can help on memory-constrained devices, and more information is available in the SpiderMonkey source (base, urgent).

The JVM compatibility target was raised to 11 on Android (@veyndan, #48414).

For users and developers

It is now possible to cross-compile the OpenHarmony build from Windows hosts (@jschwe, #48392).

Unhandled promise rejections are reported to the JS console (@TTyChud, #48486), making it easier to narrow down web compatibility issues in Servo.

The OpenHarmony SDK was updated to API level 23 (@Narfinger, #48505).

Pressing Control+A (or Command+A on macOS) now selects all the content in a document (@dzfrias, @mrobinson, #48025). It is no longer possible to copy text inside of password inputs (@dzfrias, #48404).

Embedder-originating JS (e.g. devtools console or embedding APIs) will always execute, even in documents that disable scripting via sandboxing or CSP (@derdilla, #48394).

Performance and stability

We improved performance by removing unnecessary allocations (@Narfinger, @TimvdLippe, @yezhizhen, #47689, #47839, #47838, #47982, #48006, #48036, #48099, #48204, #48127, #48218, #48357, #48386, #48422, #48440, #48452, #48508), preallocating more when building vectors (@jschwe, @Narfinger, @sagudev, @webbeef, #47455, #47613, #48026, #48398), and avoiding IPC in single process mode (@leowatts, @Narfinger, @Uiniel, @TTyChud, #47691, #47718, #48002, #48073, #48476, #48435).

We also sped up Servo by reducing interactions with the GC (@TimvdLippe, @Narfinger, #47818, #48257, #48396), and doing less work when modifying selections (@SimonSapin, #47579), dispatching events (@webbeef, #48078), calculating font metrics (@RichardTjokroutomo, #48238), and indexing window frames (@mrobinson, #47832).

We reduced memory usage in common cases by reusing buffers (@Narfinger, #47751), clearing more page-specific data (@Radeonares32, @Narfinger, @jschwe, @mrobinson, @mxmgorin, #47651, #47806, #47805, #48166, #48295, #48297, #48016), compacting data structures (@Narfinger, @webbeef, @SimonSapin, @mrobinson, #47776, #48039, #48050, #47742, #48301, #48296, #48105), and sharing more buffers (@jdm, #47998). We also fixed a memory leak involving <audio> and <video> elements (@TTyChud, #48371).

We turned on thread affinity boosting on Linux, which can improve performance on some CPU architectures (@jschwe, #47058).

We're working on statically preventing a footgun that can lead to uncollectible GC cycles and leaking memory (@Gae24, @jdm, @lumiscosity, @SilvioPilato, @sahilnyk, @TTyChud, @kuntal-devrat, @MohamedAli00949, #47941, #48013, #48021, #48035, #48033, #48051, #48072, #48171, #48209, #48248, #48246, #48264, #48285, #48311, #48408, #48053, #48156, #48186, #48223, #48315, #47872, #47698, #47682, #47735, #47816, #47817, #47794, #47909, #47934, #47935, #47954, #48022, #47955, #48058, #48228, #48247, #48261, #48280, #48302, #48316, #48328, #48346, #48355, #48262, #48377, #48304, #48378, #48388, #48432).

We fixed panics in WebRTC (@MunishMummadi, #4772), execCommand() on Document (@TimvdLippe, #47784), <video> (@calvaris, #46148), <iframe> (@jdm, #48465), SharedWorker (@mrobinson, #47940), ancestorOrigins on Document (@mrobinson, #48009), about:memory (@mxmgorin, #47686, #48001), and EGL 1.4 configurations (@mxmgorin, #47803).

We also fixed a very ironic panic triggered by the about:crash page that loads when a normal page triggers a panic (@mrobinson, #48055)

The JS console no longer hangs when primitive values as thrown as exceptions (@FatCat560, #47629). Servo no longer hangs on shutdown in multiprocess mode (@Narfinger, #48523), when certain pages use IntersectionObserver (@mxmgorin, #47693), when closing a browsing context with pending WebDriver commands (@yezhizhen, #48131, #48172), or when closing SharedWorkers (@nicoburns, #48477).

about:memory got more improvements: we measure more memory for SVG rendering (@Narfinger, @mrobinson, #47061), WebAudio (@jdm, #47996), and identify globals that have been leaked (@jdm, #48237).

More on the web platform

CSS images now delay the load event, leading to more consistent behaviour for engine users performing visual rendering (@TimvdLippe, #48199).

Interactive selections in documents continued to improve! They now can span shadow trees (@mrobinson, @SimonSapin, #47931, #47694, #47895), and have consistent heights and positions (@mrobinson, #47937), plus there are new context menu entries to copy and select all (@mrobinson, #48101). Additionally, image-based content shows when it is part of a selection (@mrobinson, #48149).

Window.open() respects sandbox flags that prevent popups (@mrobinson, #47653).

LargestContentfulPaint now reports the loadTime for image content (@shubhamg13, #48286), ignores cross-origin frames (@shubhamg13, #48094), ignores invisible text (@shubhamg13, #48010), and reports null elements when they are removed from the tree (@shubhamg13, #48125).

select() on a text input now focuses the control (@dzfrias, @mrobinson, #48475).

Our WebDriver server now automates setting permissions (@xbwwj, @yezhizhen, #47623), while sending click events and keyboard actions uses fewer delays (@yezhizhen, #48066).

There are more useful error messages for methods on Document (@eachra-bawn, #47835) and CSS-related interfaces (@eachra-bawn, @jdm, #47746).

We upgraded our stylo dependency, which improves compatibility with contrast-color(), color-mix(), vertical-align, list-style, place-items, at-rule(), calc(), alpha(), attr(), content: attr(), and named-feature() (@Loirooriol, #46987, #47942).

We also fixed bugs related to visibilityState on Document (@yezhizhen, #47908), containsNode() on Selection (@mrobinson, #47938), setKeyframes on KeyframeEffect (@simonwuelker, #48103), selections when focusing a text input (@mrobinson, #48107), AudioParam clamping and automation (@kevlu93, #48351, #48347), PannerNode outputs (@kevlu93, #48510), the muted attribute on HTMLMediaElement (@TimvdLippe, #48403), placeholders in text inputs (@jdm, #47761, #47797), animations when modifying document stylesheets (@SharanRP, #48000), gradient color stops (@BudiArb, #48288), sticky table rows (@TTyChud, #48380), ::first-letter (@Loirooriol, #48307), text-wrap-mode (@mrobinson, #48469), OTF fonts (@wood-ghost, #47904), CSS and nosniff (@sahvx655-wq, #45481), Sec-Fetch- headers and redirects (@TimvdLippe, #48203), moveBefore() on Node (@mrobinson, #47692), supports() on WebCrypto (@kkoyung, #47768, #47891, #47953, #47984, #48410, #47545), cross-origin windows (@mrobinson, @jdm, #47632, #48411, #48038), origins of about:blank and about:srcdoc (@mrobinson, #47630), keypress events (@mrobinson, #48324), text and media documents (@SilvioPilato, #47823), body() on Response (@TTyChud, #48409), <details> with <summary> (@TimvdLippe, #48224), editing hidden inputs (@dzfrias, #48165), attribute nodes in XPath (@leowatts, @mrobinson, #47912), absolutely positioned boxes (@mxmgorin, #48081), CSS Grid containers with absolutely positioned nodes (@nicoburns, #47519), WebDriver wheel/pointer actions (@yezhizhen, #48143), and blob: URLs (@Gae24, #47910).

New contributors

A special thanks to the following people for landing their first patch in Servo:

• Arnau Camprubí (@Arnau478, #47726)
• Silvio Pilato (@SilvioPilato, #47786)
• Radeonares32 (@Radeonares32, #47651)
• derdilla (@derdilla, #47828)
• pr3pony (@pr3pony, #48030)
• Mario (@Fatcat560, #47629)
• TtyChud (@TTyChud, #48228)
• Devrate Kuntal (@kuntal-devrat, #48247)
• Diego Frias (@dzfrias, #48025)
• LiamillionSS (@LiamillionSS, #48424)

Interested in helping build a web browser? Take a look at our curated list of issues that are good for new contributors!

Donations

Thanks again for your generous support! We are now receiving 8144 USD/month (+1% from August) in recurring donations. This helps us cover the cost of our speedy CI and benchmarking servers, one of our latest Outreachy interns, and funding maintainer work that helps more people contribute to Servo.

Servo is also on thanks.dev, and already 37 GitHub users (+1 from August) that depend on Servo are sponsoring us there. If you use Servo libraries like url, html5ever, selectors, or cssparser, signing up for thanks.dev could be a good way for you (or your employer) to give back to the community.

We now have sponsorship tiers that allow you or your organisation to donate to the Servo project with public acknowlegement of your support. If you're interested in this kind of sponsorship, please contact us at join@servo.org.

8128 USD/month

10000

Use of donations is decided transparently via the Technical Steering Committee's public funding request process, and active proposals are tracked in servo/project#187. For more details, head to our Sponsorship page.

05 Nov 2026 12:00am GMT