Cross-browser Testing Blog

The two most popular browsers - Google Chrome and Mozilla Firefox are currently in a race to version 100. Currently, the latest Firefox version is Firefox 88 version while Chrome is at version Chrome 90. As Chrome is 2 versions ahead, does it mean Google Chrome will be the first to hit version 100? Let's find out!

Firefox Release Cycle Analysis

To determine which browser will reach the 100th version first, it's best to look at the dates of the past stable releases. Firefox has adopted a rapid release calendar plan, which means they have a strict four-week release cycle. The following table shows the last five releases by Firefox:

• Firefox 84 - 2020/12/15
• Firefox 85 - 2021/01/26
• Firefox 86 - 2021/02/23
• Firefox 87 - 2021/03/23
• Firefox 88 - 2021/04/19

The latest version is Firefox 88, released on April 19, 2021. As we know that each next version is released every four weeks, we can calculate the future releases. We get the following data:

• Firefox 89 - 2021/06/01
• Firefox 90 - 2021/07/13
• Firefox 91 - 2021/08/10
• Firefox 92 - 2021/09/07
• Firefox 93 - 2021/10/05
• Firefox 94 - 2021/11/02
• Firefox 95 - 2021/12/07
• Firefox 96 - 2022/01/11
• Firefox 97 - 2022/02/08
• Firefox 98 - 2022/03/08
• Firefox 99 - 2022/04/05
• Firefox 100 - 2022/05/03

From this data, we can see that Firefox is expected to release its 100th version on May 3, 2022. This is assuming there are no delays in any of the future releases.

Note: You can launch all Firefox versions online from the Browserling cloud infrastructure by visiting the online browser page or by using this browser selection widget:

Chrome Release Cycle Analysis

On the other side, Google Chrome currently is released every 6 weeks, which is two weeks more than Firefox. To their advantage, Chrome is currently running version 90, which is 2 versions ahead of Firefox and was released on April 13, 2021. Google Chrome's last five releases were the following:

• Chrome 86 - 2020/10/13
• Chrome 87 - 2020/12/01
• Chrome 88 - 2021/01/26
• Chrome 89 - 2021/03/09
• Chrome 90 - 2021/04/13

At this rate, Google Chrome is expected to release its 100th version on June 7, 2022 and it looks like Mozilla Firefox will hit their 100th version much earlier than Google Chrome. But, there is a huge twist in this plan!

New Google Chrome Release Cycle

On March 4, 2021, Google announced the following changes to their release cycle:

"We are excited to announce that Chrome is planning to move to releasing a new milestone every 4 weeks, starting with Chrome 94 in Q3 of 2021."

Google Chrome 94 will be released on September 21, 2021 and from this day onwards, Google will push new releases to their users every four weeks instead of six. On this day, Firefox will be at version 92 and both browsers will move at a constant pace relative to each other. Therefore, the first browser with the larger version on September 21, 2021 will be the first to reach version 100 (assuming the release cycles after this date remain the same). Now that we know this new information, it's easy to see Google Chrome will therefore win the race to the 100th version.

First Browser to Version 100

To be absolutely sure, let's check the release calendar of Google Chrome. It has the following data:

• Chrome 91 - 2021/05/25
• Chrome 92 - 2021/07/20
• Chrome 93 - 2021/08/31
• Chrome 94 - 2021/09/21
• Chrome 95 - 2021/10/19
• Chrome 96 - 2021/11/16
• Chrome 97 - 2022/01/04
• Chrome 98 - 2022/02/01
• Chrome 99 - 2022/03/01
• Chrome 100 - 2022/03/29

We can see that the expected 100th release date of Chrome is Tuesday, March 29, 2022. On this day, Firefox will be only at version 98 and will have its 100th version released on Tuesday, May 3, 2022.

If you'd like to try all versions of browsers, then you can try Browserling - a cloud browser platform. You can get any browser on any operating system with a single click. Try it out!

Recently, Mozilla Firefox was updated to version 88 and it includes a bunch of exciting new features. These new features range from upgraded privacy settings to supporting JavaScript in PDF forms. The new update has something for everyone. In this post, we will go through the 5 most exciting new features in Firefox 88. If you're eager to go through the complete list of new features, then we have the New in Firefox 88 post that covers every single updated feature in detail. But now, let's see what Firefox has in the box for us!

Window.name Isolated to a Website

Window.name is a Javascript property that controls the name of the window's browsing context. This data can then be used by developers as a trick to pass messages or save sessions. Window.name is often also called the "bucket" for the way it behaves. So, what was the problem?

The problem with the window.name was that the data set by a website in this variable would persist until overwritten by the next website or the tab is closed. For example, if I have set my password as the window.name value and now navigate to another website (in the same tab), that website can now extract this value out and can misuse it. Trackers and other malicious software could easily browse a user's private data without their consent.

With Firefox 88, Mozilla now has stepped up towards the same-origin policy to prevent window.name misuse across websites by resetting it to an empty string. Now, when a user navigates to another website, the website will not be able to explore the user history or any other data through the variable. As an example, if a website sets my email as window.name (such as my-identity@email.com), the window.name clearing will work as follows:

Source: Mozilla. This is a great step towards keeping up the privacy promise and making Internet surfing safer on Mozilla Firefox 88.

"Take Screenshot" Removed From Page Actions

Mozilla has removed the Take Screenshot option from their Page Action menu which is located below the three dots menu in the address bar.

The following screenshot is from Firefox 86 showing the option which existed before 88:

Firefox has also stated that they are working on a redesign that removes the page actions menu entirely from the browser. So, does that mean Firefox has deprecated the screenshot feature from their browser? As it turns out, the user still has three ways to take screenshots in Firefox 88.

How to Take Screenshot in Firefox?

To take a screenshot in Firefox 88, the user can select "Take Screenshot" from the context menu (right-click on the web page):

Screenshots can also be taken through the customizable toolbar offered by Firefox.

The third option is the conventional old-school method of taking a screenshot via keyboard by pressing Win + Print Screen in Windows and it needs no introduction.

Do you want to test this feature without installing the Firefox browser? Use Browserling's cloud-based infrastructure and enter a URL of any website below:

FTP Support Disabled in Firefox 88

FTP is the File Transfer Protocol used for file transfer between a client and a server. Introduced in 1971, FTP has been exhaustively used by engineers as the default file sharing protocol as it's quick and easy to learn and use. Unfortunately, FTP is a non-encrypted protocol, which today in 2021 is a major concern.

For this reason, Firefox has removed the support of FTP from Firefox 88 and has announced its complete removal from Firefox 89. The word "complete removal" is used because a user can no longer even enable the FTP from the about:config section (also called flags section).

FTP has been a concern for other major browsers too. Google Chrome has already deprecated FTP from Chrome 72 onwards. Firefox officially stated that "FTP is not used popularly today" and has also mentioned this as a primary reason.

Smoother Pinch To Zoom - Linux Update

Pinch to zoom is a popular and everyday-use feature on a web browser. While Apple introduced pinch to zoom in 2011 for Safari, Microsoft in 2012 for IE and Chrome in around 2013, Firefox took a long time and introduced pinch to zoom in 2020 as part of Firefox 83. Still, it was available only to Windows users with a trackpad or touch screen.

With Firefox 88 release, the smooth pinch to zoom is now supported for Linux users too! This is good news for Linux users as they get a much-awaited feature with this version.

Screen Reader Glitch Solved

Taking care of people with accessibility needs, Firefox 88 has rectified the long-standing screen reader error. Earlier, the screen reader would also read the visually hidden content on the webpage. This created inconsistency in the spoken content and it was a major hurdle for screen reader users. With Firefox 88, this no longer happens.

This feature concludes our list of the 5 most exciting new features in Firefox 88. Update to Firefox 88 to take advantage of these features and enjoy safer internet browsing. For those of you who would like to take a hands-on experience with Firefox 88 without installing it on their system, you can use Browserling's cloud-browser infrastructure. Just enter your target URL, select the OS and Browser version below and you'll get an interactive online browser in 5 seconds without installing anything!

Recently, Google released Chrome 90 and in this blog post, we'll be looking at what we think are the top 5 most exciting features in this new browser version.

AV1 Encoder That is Specifically Optimized for Video Conferencing

Video conferencing has never been more popular than today. Google knows this and they prioritized the work on an AV1 video encoder that they just implemented and released in Chrome 90 (on the desktop browser version). The AV1 encoder uses WebRTC protocol to optimize video calls. The WebRTC protocol allows peer-to-peer connections between various web browsers quickly and easily. Once web services start using this codec, it will make online video quality better (even with slow data connections) and it will also use less data bandwidth.

Chrome's Address Bar will Use HTTPS by Default

The address bar in Chrome 90 now defaults to HTTPS (port 443) instead of HTTP (port 80). This change improves website loading speed and increases privacy as the HTTPS protocol is encrypted. The majority of websites nowadays have switched to HTTPS and if a website does not support HTTPS, then Chrome 90 will automatically fall back to the HTTP protocol.

Improved Copy and Paste

Now in Chrome 90, you can copy and paste files from your file manager into a website just like you do in your desktop app. For example, to add an attachment in Gmail or any other file to a web application, you don't need to use other tools or the file selection dialog. You can just copy the file to the clipboard via CTRL+C and then hit CTRL+V to paste into the web application you have opened in Chrome.

Windows Naming

If you open a new window or a new tab in Chrome 90, then now it has a new window management feature that you can use for organization purposes. It adds the ability to give windows names. For example, if you have two copies of the same website open, then you can give them short names such as "W1" and "W2" that will let you identify the tabs by just glancing at them. If your browser experiences an unexpected crash, Chrome will also restore the names you have added.

This feature can be found under the three-dot menu icon. Select "More tools" and then select the action "Name window". Or you can simply right-click the window title bar and also select the "Name window" action.

Simpler Access to Gravity Sensor

Chrome 90 makes it much easier for developers to access the data from the gravity sensor. Currently, developers manually collect data from the acceleration sensor and make calculations to find the gravity value and it's pretty cumbersome. The new gravity sensor API allows developers to get this data directly. The new gravity API will help developers to make motion-based apps, such as games, virtual reality simulators, and other apps more accurate. At the moment, the feature is in beta and to access it, you need to edit a configuration flag, and it will take a while until it becomes a stable feature.

Thanks for reading our blog post about the 5 most exciting Chrome 90 features. We also wrote a blog post What's New in Chrome 90 that covers over a dozen other features in this new browser release, as well as security fixes and more developer updates.

Mozilla just released Firefox 88 and we rushed to install it on our virtual browser cloud. In this blog post, we'll summarize the new features and changes in this Firefox version so that you know what to expect when cross-browser testing your webapps in it.

Try Browserling on Firefox 88 now!

New in Firefox 88

• Enhanced privacy protection - To protect against cross-site privacy leaks, Firefox 88 now isolates window.name data to the website that created it.
• JavaScript support in PDF forms - Firefox 88 now executes JavaScript in PDF forms that's used for input validation and other interactive features.
• Smooth pinch-zooming in Linux - As Linux has evolved with new touchpad drivers, Firefox 88 now supports smooth pinch-zoom gesture on Linux.
• Margin units in Print Dialog are now localized - Depending on your location, margin units are now automatically selected in centimeters or inches.

Changes in Firefox 88

• Less nagging - Firefox 88 will not prompt for access to your microphone or camera if you've already granted access to the same device on the same site in the same tab within the past 50 seconds. This new grace period reduces the number of times you're prompted to grant device access.
• Take a screenshot has been moved - The "Take a Screenshot" feature was removed from the Page Actions menu in the url bar. To take a screenshot, right-click to open the context menu. You can also add a screenshots shortcut directly to your toolbar via the Customize menu. Open the Firefox menu and select Customize.
• FTP is gone - FTP support has been disabled, and its full removal is planned for an upcoming release. Addressing this security risk reduces the likelihood of an attack while also removing support for a non-encrypted protocol.

Developer's Corner

The following section summarizes changes that affect web developer's work.

Switch between raw/formatted JSON

There's now a "Raw" switch in the developer tools that lets you switch between a raw JSON response and formatted JSON response. It can be found in the request/response tab:

CSS Changes

• The default monospace font for MacOS has been changed to Menlo.
• The :user-valid and :user-invalid pseudo-classes have been implemented.

JavaScript Changes

• Added support for RegExp match indices.

Network Changes

• FTP has been disabled on all releases (preference network.ftp.enabled now defaults to false).

Security Changes

• The localhost URLs will refer to the loopback ip address (127.0.0.1), increasing the overall security of the connection.

DOM API Changes

• Code can now use the new static method AbortSignal.abort() to return an AbortSignal that is already set as aborted.

Media Changes

• If the number of tracks being recorded changes, an InvalidModificationError is thrown from the MediaRecorder.start().

Changes for add-on developers

• Url can now be used to limit the properties for which the tabs.onUpdated event is triggered.

Changes in Firefox 88 for Android

• Search engine suggestion feature makes it easier to search the web.
• Fixed an issue where video playing in fullscreen or picture-in-picture mode would not display correctly on sites using a desktop viewport.

Unresolved Issues in Firefox 88

• Some purchased video content may not play correctly due to a recent Widevine plugin update (this will be addressed in an upcoming bug fix release).

Security Fixes in Firefox 88

• CVE-2021-23994: Out of bound write due to lazy initialization.
• CVE-2021-23995: Use-after-free in Responsive Design Mode.
• CVE-2021-23996: Content rendered outside of webpage viewport.
• CVE-2021-23997: Use-after-free when freeing fonts from cache.
• CVE-2021-23998: Secure Lock icon could have been spoofed.
• CVE-2021-23999: Blob URLs may have been granted additional privileges.
• CVE-2021-24000: requestPointerLock() could be applied to a tab different from the visible tab.
• CVE-2021-24001: Testing code could have enabled session history manipulations by a compromised content process.
• CVE-2021-24002: Arbitrary FTP command execution on FTP servers using an encoded URL.
• CVE-2021-29945: Incorrect size computation in WebAssembly JIT could lead to null-reads.
• CVE-2021-29944: HTML injection vulnerability in Firefox for Android's Reader View.
• CVE-2021-29946: Port blocking could be bypassed.
• CVE-2021-29947: Memory safety bugs fixed in Firefox 88.

Learn more about testing in Firefox and have fun cross-browser testing in Firefox 88!

Today, Google released the 90th version of its Chrome browser. We just installed it on our browser cloud and you can already start testing in it. In this post, we'll summarize the latest features in this new browser version.

What's New in Chrome 90

• A new value for the CSS overflow property.
• The Feature Policy API has been renamed to Permissions Policy.
• A new way to implement and use Shadow DOM directly in HTML.
• Chrome's address bar now uses https:// by default.
• AV1 encoder that is specifically optimized for video conferencing with WebRTC integration.
• Removal of Content Security Policy directive plugin-types.
• Removal of WebRTC RTP data channels.
• Return of empty for navigator.plugins and navigator.mimeTypes.
• And as always, a number of tiny fixes and improvements.

Detailed Changes in Chrome 90

• AV1 Encoder - This feature ships an AV1 encoder in Chrome desktop, specifically optimized for video conferencing with WebRTC integration. AV1 encode is requested by a number of RTC applications, including Duo, Meet, and Webex. The primary benefits of AV1 are better compression, better quality on low bandwidth connections, efficient screen sharing compared to VP9 and other codecs.
• AbstractRange superclass - The bits shared between StaticRange and Range objects are put on a shared superclass named AbstractRange.
• Add support for CSS properties "overflow: clip" and "overflow-clip-margin" - Adds two CSS features. The 'clip' value results in a box's content being clipped to the box's overflow clip edge. In addition, no scrolling interface is provided, and the content can not be scrolled by the user or programmatically. The overflow-clip-margin property enables specifying how far outside the bounds an element is allowed to paint before being clipped.
• Block HTTP port 554 - Connections to HTTP, HTTPS or FTP servers on port 554 will fail. This is a mitigation for the NAT Slipstream 2.0 attack. It helps developers by keeping the web platform safe for users.
• CSS aspect-ratio interpolation - The aspect-ratio property allows automatically computing the other dimension if only one of width and height is specified on any element. This property was originally launched as non-interpolable (meaning that it would snap to the target value) when animated.
• Clipboard: read-only files support - This proposes to expose read-only files on the clipboard to renderers using a similar approach to drag-and drop. Renderers will have access to read file paths from the clipboard, but not write paths to the clipboard. For file paths on the clipboard, renderers will have read-only access.
• Custom state pseudo class - The feature lets custom elements expose their states via the :state() CSS pseudo class.
• Declarative Shadow DOM - A declarative API to allow the creation of #shadowroot's using only HTML and no Javascript.
• Protect application/x-protobuffer via Cross-Origin-Read-Blocking - Protect application/x-protobuffer from speculative execution attacks by adding it to the list of never sniffed MIME types used by Cross-Origin-Read-Blocking. The application/x-protobuf is already protected as a never sniffed mime type and it's another commonly used MIME type that is defined as an "ALT_CONTENT_TYPE" by the protobuf library.
• Read Chrome device attributes - Device Attributes Web API is a subset of Device Web API, that provides to web applications the capability to query device information (device ID, serial number, location, etc).
• Remove Content Security Policy directive 'plugin-types' - The directive 'plugin-types' allows developer to restrict which types of plugin can be loaded via <embed> or <object> html elements. The main point was to allow developer to block Flash in their pages. But Flash support has been discontinued, so there is not much point in this anymore.
• Remove WebRTC RTP data channels - Removes support for the non-standard RTP data channels in WebRTC. Users should use the standard SCTP-based data channels instead.
• Remove clamping of setTimeout(fn, 0) - Calls to setTimeout(fn, 0) were previously clamped to a 1 ms timeout, instead of resulting in a callback as soon as possible.
• Seeking past the end of a file in the File System Access API - Rather than rejecting when trying to write past the end of a file, require extending a file with some number of 0x00 (NUL) bytes instead. This enables creating sparse files and greatly simplifies saving content to a file when the data to be written is received out of order.
• StaticRange constructor - Currently, Range is the only constructible range type available to web authors. However, Range objects are "live" and maintaining them can be expensive. For every tree change, all affected Range objects need to be updated. StaticRange objects are not live and represent a lightweight range type that is not subject to the same maintenance cost as Range. By making StaticRange constructible, we will allow web authors to use them for ranges that do not need to be updated on every DOM tree change.
• Support specifying width/height on <source< elements for <picture< - This feature allows specifying a width and height on <source> elements that are used in <picture>, which allows the image to compute an aspect ratio from these attributes.
• New restrictions for file URLs - Aligns behavior with the standard in edge cases when changing the URL protocol to or from "file". Previously, attempting to change the protocol of a URL with credentials or a port to "file" would lead to an invalid URL. Similarly, attempting to change a URL with no host from "file" to "http" would lead to an invalid URL. Now the invalid change will be ignored for consistency with other browsers. This affects the "protocol" attribute on the URL API, location, and <a> and <area> elements.
• Use focus-visible in the default UA style sheet - Change the Chromium default UA style sheet to use :focus-visible instead of :focus pseudo-class to paint the focus indicator (outline). This will avoid that elements show a focus indicator (because they're focused and match :focus) while they don't match :focus-visible.
• WebAssembly Exception Handling - This feature is adding exception support to WebAssembly. Exception handling allows code to break control flow when an exception is thrown. The exception can be any exception known by the WebAssembly module, or it may be an unknown exception that was thrown by a called imported function.
• OscillatorOptions.periodicWave in WebAudio is not nullable - It is no longer possible to set the periodicWave member of OscillatorOptions to null. The WebAudio spec doesn't allow this, so we're aligning Chrome with the spec and also Firefox, which has implemented this correctly for 4 years.
• WebXR AR Lighting Estimation - Allows sites to query for estimates of the environmental lighting conditions within WebXr sessions. This exposes both spherical harmonics representing the ambient lighting, as well as a cubemap texture representing "reflections". Adding Lighting Estimation can help to make your models feel more natural and like they "fit" better with the user's environment. This can make them feel more "real" or "natural".
• WebXR Depth API - The Depth API is an extension to WebXR Device API that allows applications access to depth buffer information that conveys information about the user's environment, with primary focus on Augmented Reality scenarios. By leveraging the depth API, web applications could offer more immersive AR experiences to their users.

Security Fixes in Chrome 90 Release

• High CVE-2021-21201: Use after free in permissions (reported by Gengming Liu and Jianyu Chen).
• High CVE-2021-21202: Use after free in extensions (reported by David Erceg).
• High CVE-2021-21203, 21204: Use after free in Blink (reported by Asnine, Chelse Tsai-Simek, Jeanette Ulloa, and Emily Voigtlander).
• High CVE-2021-21205: Insufficient policy enforcement in navigation (reported by Alison Huffman).
• High CVE-2021-21221: Insufficient validation of untrusted input in Mojo (reported by Guang Gong of Alpha Lab).
• Medium CVE-2021-21207: Use after free in IndexedDB (reported by Koocola and Nan Wang).
• Medium CVE-2021-21208: Insufficient data validation in QR scanner (reported by Ahmed Elsobky).
• Medium CVE-2021-21209: Inappropriate implementation in storage (reported by Tom Van Goethem).
• Medium CVE-2021-21210: Inappropriate implementation in Network (reported by Bananabr).
• Medium CVE-2021-21211: Inappropriate implementation in Navigation (reported by Akash Labade).
• Medium CVE-2021-21212: Incorrect security UI in Network Config UI (reported by Hugo Hue and Sze Yiu Chau).
• Medium CVE-2021-21213: Use after free in WebMIDI (reported by Raven).
• Medium CVE-2021-21214: Use after free in Network API (reported by Anonymous).
• Medium CVE-2021-21215, 21216: Inappropriate implementation in Autofill (reported by Abdulrahman Alqabandi).
• Low CVE-2021-21217, 21218, 21219: Uninitialized Use in PDFium (reported by Zhou Aiting).

Have fun cross-browser testing in Chrome 90!