Upcoming Firefox update makes it easier to spot when sites are using your location

Firefox is introducing a useful privacy update in the latest Nightly build. The browser now turns the location permission icon (located near the beginning of the address bar) bright red whenever a website is actively accessing your location.

While it’s a small change, it ensures that users can easily check whether their location is being used at a glance in real time.

The official Firefox Nightly account on X posted about this change, along with the Bugzilla link.

I’ve installed Firefox Nightly and checked for the changes myself. While browsing through Google Maps, I granted location access for a map-related search. The moment Maps started accessing my location, the pin icon in the address bar turned red.

The visual cue ensures that I don’t have to wonder whether the location permissions are active in the background anymore. I can easily tell if a website is accessing my location now, as easily as camera and mic access.

Furthermore, blocking location access to a site also has a visual cue, where the location icon is striked out.

When there’s a pop-up asking for my location, the icon is gray in color.

The announcement also links to a Bugzilla report (#2038194), which basically discusses making location access more visible in the browser UI. The ticket has now been resolved, and it’s slated for release in Firefox v153.

Now’s a good time to bring up the various versions of Firefox. Firefox 153 is still in “Nightly,” which is a highly experimental and unstable (Alpha) build with 1 or 2 updates a day.

A slightly better version is Firefox Beta (currently v152), and there’s the normal stable version (v151.0.3). I wouldn’t recommend installing the Beta or Nightly if you’re not a developer or tester, since it may not work well for regular use.

Firefox 153 is slated for public release in July, and with it comes a downgrade to the iconic sidebar. We covered that here. Speaking of the stable channel, version 151.0.3 was released yesterday with two important bug fixes. You can read about that here.

Disclaimer: The Featured image was generated with AI.

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