Firefox 153.0.3 update rolling out with a smarter Smart Window and six bug fixes

Mozilla is pushing out a small but handy update to Firefox this week. Version 153.0.3 is rolling out now, and while it won’t turn heads the way the big Firefox 153 launch with native Containers and PDF tools did, it does clean up a bunch of nagging problems and gives the Smart Window a couple of useful upgrades.

The main upgrade to look for in this new update is Smart Window, Mozilla’s assistant-style take on the address bar. There are two key changes, the first being that the suggestion list now shows more results when you start typing. This makes it easier for you to dig up something from your history or jump to a tab that’s already open.

The second tweak is more interesting. The assistant can now answer questions on its own using web search results, instead of just tossing you over to a search engine and calling it a day.

Powering this smart search experience is Exa, a company most people won’t recognize by the name. So when you ask Smart Window something, it can pull an actual answer together rather than leading you to a results page to fend for yourself.

If this sounds familiar, it’s because we recently highlighted practically the same feature rolling out on the Firefox app for iPhone, where it’s dubbed Quick Answers.

That said, Mozilla notes that this is a gradual release, so don’t panic if you update the browser and don’t see the feature. As the company puts it, a progressive rollout means “some users will see the feature before everyone does,” which helps them “catch bugs and improve behavior quickly.” Translation: you might be waiting a bit, and we’re in the same boat.

Apart from the feature additions, Firefox 153.0.3 also carries bug fixes. The notes suggest that Mozilla fixed audio and video that refused to play or hung when you tried to skip around on sites using Blob URLs. Windows users get two nice ones. Internet shortcuts dragged to the desktop no longer throw a security warning every single time you open them, and a rare case where starting Firefox mid-update could break the whole install has been patched.

And we’re not done yet.

The Bookmarks and History sidebars now open properly even with the password manager switched off by an enterprise policy, a Mozilla VPN upsell that was popping up in regions where the VPN isn’t even sold is gone, and frequent Developer Tools crashes tied to extension scripts have been squashed.

As mentioned at the start, there’s nothing flashy with the release, but it’s a useful cleanup. It should be hitting your browser now.

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