Exactly a month after releasing Firefox Focus for Android, Mozilla has updated its privacy browser with full screen support on most video sites (YouTube is still missing) and the ability to download files. You can grab the latest version now from Google Play.
Firefox Focus offers privacy benefits and performance gains by blocking many web trackers, including analytics, social, and advertising. Mozilla first launched an iOS version in November 2016, with the Android release coming in June 2017. Because Google isn’t as strict as Apple, Android users have a lot more flexibility than their iOS counterparts, like being able to set Firefox Focus as their default browser.
Mozilla today also shared that Firefox Focus has passed 1 million downloads since launch. These are not active users mind you — just downloads — but the figure nonetheless shows there is interest in this type of browser.
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First up, today’s update brings full screen videos to the browser — if you’re going to watch videos on your phone, you naturally need to be able to expand the content to full size. YouTube support is still missing, however, as Mozilla says it is waiting on a bug fix from Google.
Firefox Focus now also supports downloading files of all kinds. Whether you’re listening to music, playing games, reading an ebook, or doing work, the ability to download files is often required.
Here’s the full changelog for today’s release:
- Watch full screen videos for most video sites
- Supports downloads
- Updated notification actions to quickly open Firefox Focus through notifications
The last point is notable if you use Firefox Focus a lot on your phone. Until now, tapping the notification would clear your browser history and close the app. This was a useful reminder for the privacy-conscious but super annoying if you just wanted to get back to the browser. Mozilla has now fixed this by offering a shortcut to open Firefox Focus again.
It’s great to see Mozilla listening to feedback, but the biggest feature request is still missing: tabs. The company didn’t mention whether it is working on bringing the browser feature it once pioneered to its privacy-focused version.
