Firefox v157 beta 2 fixes broken DRM playback, various crashes, and more

Shortly after the first beta for Firefox v157 dropped, the second one followed through, bringing an extensive list of 20 bug fixes.

I’ve attached a screenshot of the changelog for Firefox v157 beta 2 below. It’s a list from Bugzilla, so it may not be easily readable or understandable. While the original changelog mentions 20 fixes, I’ve picked out some that I think users would notice the most.

Here’s a list of some changes I found important:

1. PlayReady DRM fix: Protected video playback had some failures earlier. For example, a short unencrypted video, like an ad or logo, would switch to a DRM-protected video. In that situation, an error like “Can’t play…” would have shown up. This has been fixed.
2. WebGPU pages: Earlier, websites using WebGPU could hard-crash Firefox entirely. The page had some issues with the GPU buffer, so the issue won’t occur as often now.
3. Firefox on Linux issues with crashing were resolved.
4. Sometimes, extension popups couldn’t show “Are you sure?” dialog boxes before. This issue has been fixed.
5. The new sidebar is being enabled for everyone.
6. Various issues related to “Organize tabs.” (Organize Tabs sometimes treated different chat tabs as duplicates, reused a group name that was already there, or showed no suggestions after restoring a Smart Window).
7. Some Ubuntu-specific issues were fixed.
8. Theme previews used to ignore your configured light/dark mode. Now, it picks the theme properly.
9. Issues with Location requests fixed.

Note: While beta versions are supposed to be more stable than Nightly builds, it’s still not recommended as your primary browser, since it’s prone to bugs and glitches. It’s only suggested for developers/testers. If you’re interested in trying the beta, you can get it from here.

The official Firefox Beta account posted about these changes on X, which links to the Bug List on Bugzilla.

While this beta has a long list of bug fixes, the first beta of v157 fixes the HDR-related bugs and audio sync glitches. More on that here.

In other Firefox news, a slight UI tweak for Private Browsing mode is being tested. We covered that here. The overall design tweaks are part of a broader Nova redesign, which will probably roll out at the end of September this year to the public. It’s currently in beta as well.

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