fidzu : thunderbird

In 2025, we rolled out one update after another, all aimed at making your browsing better - with more flow, speed, choice, and control over your information and experience. Your window to the internet, whether on desktop, mobile, or across all your devices, has gotten an upgrade this year.

More flow:

Tab Groups

Try Tab Groups to bring calm to tab chaos - whether you keep three tabs open or three thousand. Color-coded groups make it easy to gather related tabs, stay organized, and jump between projects without losing your place. News you read daily? Weekend hobby research? That big trip you're planning? There's a group for that.

Vertical Tabs

Vertical Tabs give you another way to browse - stacking tabs along the side of your window instead of across the top. If you like seeing more of your open tabs at a glance or want a tidier layout, Vertical Tabs give you an alternate view that's easy to scan and move through.

Address Bar Shortcuts

Address Bar Shortcuts let you jump straight to what you're looking for using simple, natural keywords. You can quickly search things like open tabs, bookmarks, history, or browser actions by typing helpful shortcuts (like @tabs or @bookmarks) right in the bar - an intuitive way to find what you need without breaking your flow.

More speed:

Shake to Summarize (iOS)

On mobile, every moment counts. Shake to Summarize lets you get the key points of what you're reading with a quick shake or tap. Recipes highlight the steps, sports show the scores, and news pulls out main takeaways - all within seconds. It even earned a Special Mention in TIME's Best Inventions of 2025. To activate it, you can:

• Shake your device.
• Tap the thunderbolt icon in the address bar.
• Or, from the menu, tap three dots > Summarize Page.

Save Web Apps (Windows)

Firefox lets you save sites to your Windows taskbar and run them as web apps. Once clicked, they open in their own window, so your favorite tools and services are easy to find and quick to launch. You can add any website to the taskbar, just click the web apps icon that appears in the address bar.

Link Previews

Link Previews give you a quick snapshot of what's behind a link before you open it. No more opening a handful of tabs only to close most of them - just instant context to help you decide where to go next. To activate, click and hold a link for about a second (long press), or right-click on a link and choose 'Preview Link' from the menu.

Unload Tabs

Unload Tabs helps your browser run more efficiently by putting inactive tabs to sleep. They stay visible and ready to reopen instantly when you need them - without slowing down the rest of your browser. Right-click any tab and select 'Unload Tab' to try it out.

More choice:

AI Chatbots

Unlike browsers that tie you to one default assistant, Firefox lets you choose the AI chatbot you want, right in the sidebar. Keep your preferred assistant within reach, get quick answers without switching tabs, and browse the way that works best for you.

Perplexity

We integrated Perplexity as a secondary search option, offering conversational answers with citations you can trust. It's a powerful alternative for people who want direct, verifiable information without digging through long pages of results.

Custom Wallpapers

Now you can personalize the look and feel of your browser with curated wallpaper collections or your own images. Create a space that's uniquely yours by opening a new tab and clicking the pencil icon to start customizing.

More control:

PDF Editing

Firefox's built-in PDF editor now includes signatures and commenting tools. Add notes, mark up documents, sign forms, and review everything from one convenient sidebar - no extra software required.

Visual Search

Visual Search powered by Google Lens lets you look up what you see with a quick right-click on any image. This desktop-only feature makes searching more intuitive and curiosity-driven. For now, it requires Google as your default search engine.

Screen Lock for Private Tabs (Android)

Your private browsing is exactly that: private. Screen Lock protects your private tabs using your device's biometric authentication - fingerprints, facial recognition, or PIN - keeping your activity secure from anyone who picks up your phone.

Profile Management

Try profiles to help you keep different parts of your digital life separate. Work vs. personal browsing? School vs. gaming? Create profiles for each, switch between them instantly, and stay focused. Feedback from students, professionals, and contributors helped shape the version rolling out today.

Thanks for a great 2025!

You got a lot more with Firefox this year - from smoother tab management and faster ways to find information to new tools that give you more choice and more control. Wherever the internet takes you, we'll keep building a browser that puts you first.

To stay on top of the latest in the new year, be the first to know by checking our release notes or What's New in Firefox. Thanks for being part of the journey.

The post You got more with Firefox in 2025 appeared first on The Mozilla Blog.

09 Dec 2025 8:00am GMT

Last year, the Firefox team set out to test something fans requested: choosing a custom app icon. The experiment was simple. Offer a small set of options and see how people use them.

The team created early concepts, but experiment lead Gabrielle Lussier noticed something was missing. The designs were clean and functional, but none captured the playful, emotional spark people associate with Firefox. That led the team to revisit a collection of fan art shared during Firefox's 20th anniversary, and one illustration stood out immediately: a warm, whimsical drawing of Firefox hugging the Earth by Dutch illustrator Ruud Hendriks (@heyheymomodraws).

"I love that it is reminiscent of our original logo from 2004, but modernized and simplified. It's also adorable! How could you not love it!" said Gabrielle.

Ruud is known for the charming, joyful characters in his comic series heyheymomo, and he brings that same energy to this design. He originally created the artwork as a quick doodle for fun. Today, it is the first community-created app icon in Firefox. To select the icon, head to Settings → Customize → App Icon.

In the Q&A below, Ruud shares how the sketch came to life, what inspired it, and what it means to see his work appear inside a browser he has used for years.

Can you tell us a bit about yourself and what inspired you to participate in last year's Firefox 20th anniversary fan art challenge?

The funny thing is, I participated before the challenge was even a thing! One day, I didn't know what to draw and somehow felt inspired by the cute little fox icon in my dock. I drew my own version as a super loose doodle, completely on a whim, in just a few minutes. I thought it came out pretty cute, so I posted it on my social media just for fun. People vibed with it, and the Mozilla social team picked it up. A few weeks later, I got a message asking if I wanted to submit it for the challenge since they really liked it. Of course I said yes!

What does Firefox mean to you personally, as a brand, a browser, or a community?

I've been on the internet for a long time. Firefox has been my favourite browser since forever, and I'm a bit of a creature of habit, so it's always stuck with me. I like how lightweight and simple it is. Plus, as a visually minded person, I totally judge books by their covers - and I've always loved the Firefox icon. It's so appealing that it made me want to draw it in the first place.

Where did the idea for your "Firefox hugging the Earth" artwork come from?

It's my little homage to the older Firefox logo, the one that made me a Firefox fan. The new one is very stylish, but the older one has always had a special place in my heart. My own work is usually very cutesy, with smiley faces and friendly characters, so I just drew my own version of it in that style.

This looks hand-drawn. What tools or techniques did you use to create it?

The initial five-minute doodle was just a quick sketch on my iPad using the app Procreate. Since Mozilla was interested in making it an actual icon, I later created a high-resolution, smoother version using vector art.

How did you feel when you learned your artwork would become one of the official Firefox app icons?

As a longtime Firefox fan, I was over the moon and couldn't believe all of this came from just a silly doodle I did on a whim. I think that's the beauty of the internet - how something small and spontaneous can take off like that. I'm really honoured, and I hope you all like my silly, little icon.

What a fan-made icon says about how we build

Ruud's icon shows how product features can come from small, genuine ideas. His artwork delivered exactly what the team set out to explore: a bit of delight, a touch of nostalgia, and a visual style that feels true to Firefox. This project reflects how Mozilla builds. We listen, we iterate, and we look for ways to bring community creativity into the product. Ruud's contribution shows how users and artists can shape Firefox in ways that feel both personal and unexpected.

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Ruud Hendriks is an illustrator from the Netherlands, specializing in cute and whimsical characters. He has extensive experience working on children's toys, apps, and games, and now focuses primarily on his own comic series, heyheymomo, which follows the adventures of a dog and frog who are best friends.

His work is lighthearted and designed to brighten your day, even if just for a moment. You can explore his comics on Instagram @heyheymomodraws and find prints at heyheymomo.com.

The post Meet the artist behind Firefox's new community-created app icon appeared first on The Mozilla Blog.

08 Dec 2025 4:20pm GMT

TLDR: You can now find a list of Rust contributors that you can sponsor on this page.

Same as with many other open-source projects, Rust depends on a large number of contributors, many of whom make Rust better on a volunteer basis or are funded only for a fraction of their open-source contributions.

Supporting these contributors is vital for the long-term health of the Rust language and its toolchain, so that it can keep its current level of quality, but also evolve going forward. Of course, this is nothing new, and there are currently several ongoing efforts to provide stable and sustainable funding for Rust maintainers, such as the Rust Foundation Maintainer Fund or the RustNL Maintainers Fund. We are very happy about that!

That being said, there are multiple ways of supporting the development of Rust. One of them is sponsoring individual Rust contributors directly, through services like GitHub Sponsors. This makes it possible even for individuals or small companies to financially support their favourite contributors. Every bit of funding helps!

Previously, if you wanted to sponsor someone who works on Rust, you had to go on a detective hunt to figure out who are the people contributing to the Rust toolchain, if they are receiving sponsorships and through which service. This was a lot of work that could provide a barrier to sponsorships. So we simplified it!

Now we have a dedicated Funding page on the Rust website, which helpfully shows members of the Rust Project that are currently accepting funds through sponsoring¹. You can click on the name of a contributor to find out what teams they are a part of and what kind of work they do in the Rust Project.

Note that the list of contributors accepting funding on this page is non-exhaustive. We made it opt in, so that contributors can decide on their own whether they want to be listed there or not.

If you ever wanted to support the development of Rust "in the small", it is now simpler than ever.

1. The order of people on the funding page is shuffled on every page load to reduce unnecessary ordering bias. ↩

08 Dec 2025 12:00am GMT