We have around two more weeks until Firefox v159 goes live to the public. Now, the second beta is available for testing, and it’s focused on bug fixes.

As usual, the official Firefox Beta account posted about the update on X.

Firefox latest update.

A screenshot of the official Bugzilla page has been attached below for your reference.

Bugzilla Firefox beta screenshot.

I have updated to the second beta of Firefox v159, and here’s a list of the bug fixes, simplified:

  1. Amazon Prime Video used to stop working in Firefox v158: Videos on Amazon Prime Video used to fail entirely. The browser got stuck in a deadlock while checking for video decryption support, and this has now been fixed. Similar affected sites should also work properly now.
  2. ChatGPT maps used to consume a lot of RAM and cause browser freezes: Opening a chat (on ChatGPT) that has an embedded Mapbox map used to make the browser consume several gigabytes of memory. This has now been fixed.
  3. Phone alarms issue: If you watch YouTube in Firefox and your clock alarm goes off, the alarm used to make almost no sound (or vibration). This has been addressed.
  4. Issues with blank QR codes and canvas images on some Macs with Intel graphics have been resolved.
  5. Problem with blurry text in the Sidebery sidebar extension due to a scaling issue has been patched.
  6. Visual issue with Alpenglow theme has been polished.
  7. Hardware video decoding issue/frame sync errors on Linux addressed.
  8. Firefox is adding the configuration for a new “Yahoo Scout” chatbot in the AI sidebar. It will be rolled out via an experiment (initially US/English) so it can be turned on remotely without a full browser update.
  9. Widgets on the New Tab page are being set to “off” by default.

Note: This list only includes major user-facing bug fixes and doesn’t contain the entire list of fixes. You can view the entire Bug List on Bugzilla. Also worth mentioning: The toggle to disable the Nova redesign continues to exist in about:config, and that hasn’t been removed yet, though it will be soon.

In other Firefox news, the company is considering bringing multi-language news and sponsored content to the New Tab page. More on that here. Curious about the latest stable version of Firefox? The v158 update actually includes some interesting changes. We detailed them in previous coverage.

 
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PiunikaWeb’s Take

This beta seems to be a quieter one with several bug fixes and refinements, and fixes to resource consumption. The previous v159 beta 1 actually introduced some user-facing features, such as new keyboard shortcuts, saved passwords showing up in the sidebar, the official macOS Share Sheet being used, and more.

Mozilla has a lot going on lately, such as the recent introduction of Firefox Enterprise to challenge Edge and Chrome’s grip on corporate IT.

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Sudhanshu K
330 Posts

I have been a consumer technology enthusiast for over 5 years. Thanks to my experience in software beta testing and product reviews, I've understood and learnt a lot about what bugs and issues bother people, and I spend time trying to simplify their solutions. I cover smartphones, software, social media, apps, AI, and most consumer tech gadgets. Actively pursuing a Computer Science bachelor’s degree. I'm mostly active on Twitter/X (@TechWhirlUlt), drop a DM or tag me if you want to share info or connect!