With Firefox 156 they are promoting their built-in PDF viewer as now starting up to 45% faster. Also on the performance side is improved memory and CPU usage when Firefox is displaying large JPEG images that in turn are scaled down to fit on a web page.

There are also a number of fixes in Firefox 156 like for high-sample-rate FLAC audio in MP4 failing on some websites, fixing various platform-specific issues, and other minor adjustments.

Within the Firefox 156 nightly builds was also enabling Vulkan Video decoding for newer NVIDIA GPUs on recent versions of the NVIDIA driver, but sadly that didn't make it for the Firefox 156 release with it still being gated to nightly builds.

This isn't the most exciting Firefox update for Linux users in recent history, but if wanting this latest update you can grab Firefox 156 right now via ftp.mozilla.org.

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[–] Trainguyrom@reddthat.com 29 points 6 days ago (1 children)

Dude I love the new PDF features in Firefox! Only thing that's missing is to make them a little more obvious so that people realize they're there

[–] icelimit@lemmy.ml 4 points 5 days ago (2 children)

Doesn't pdf viewing just work in the background? Does one need any technical skills to access the improvement?

[–] Trainguyrom@reddthat.com 1 points 2 days ago

They added the ability to fill PDF forms a few years ago and much more recently added the ability to rearrange documents, copy/remove pages, etc. but each are kinda difficult to find features if you don't know what to look for

[–] klangcola@reddthat.com 3 points 5 days ago

Firefox also has ODF annotation tools, not just viewing. The annotation icons aren't super clear tho

[–] RodgeGrabTheCat@lemmy.ca 29 points 6 days ago (4 children)

Looks like no changes for Android so I can expect Ironfox to continue being slow like winter-time molasses.

[–] lilith267@lemmy.blahaj.zone 13 points 6 days ago (1 children)

I dont think its ironfox's fault but it seems to be triggering somekinda flag on almost every "normal" internet site that causes the site to just not connect or be incredibly slow. Works just fine on some personal blog sites and loads my own selfhosted stuff just fine

[–] labyrinth@sh.itjust.works 3 points 5 days ago

It disables JavaScript JIT by default, IIRC. If you haven't turned it back on, give it a go.

[–] verily@lemmy.dbzer0.com 12 points 6 days ago (1 children)

Have you considered an alternative to the browser as a PDF reader?

https://f-droid.org/en/packages/com.gitlab.mudlej.MjPdfReader/

I like this one, it's plenty quick, and it doesn't sit atop a whole web browser. (For desktops, I use SumatraPDF which is similarly snappy.)

[–] RmDebArc_5@piefed.zip 2 points 6 days ago

MJ PDF is so good. The only advantage of Firefox for Android is that the PDFs are sandboxes in the browser so you're mostly protected from malicious files

[–] eldavi@lemmy.ml 8 points 6 days ago

it's pretty snappy for me and i have an old & cheap android

[–] fleebleneeble@reddthat.com 1 points 6 days ago (1 children)

Have you tried Ice Raven?

[–] shpuncle@lemmy.dbzer0.com 6 points 6 days ago (2 children)

I thought iceraven hadn't been updated in a while? I switched to waterfox this summer, and it works better.

[–] BrikoX@lemmy.zip 2 points 6 days ago (1 children)

Their updates are slower than some other forks, but it is getting regular updates.

[–] shpuncle@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2 points 5 days ago

Allright, I had some issues that were solved by switching at least, I'm happy for now! Also agree to the other commenter on librewolf for desktop!

[–] fleebleneeble@reddthat.com 2 points 6 days ago

I think I just got an update the other day? I'll have to check, using it for mobile. Also one of the only browsers I have an extension for removing paywalls on articles. Otherwise for desktop I definitely use Waterfox or Librewolf.

[–] gary_host_laptop@lemmy.ml 20 points 6 days ago

well i guess this one is for the people who wanted mozilla to improve efficiency instead of aesthetics.

[–] comrademiao@piefed.social 4 points 5 days ago

Though I don’t trust default Firefox post ad debacle, it is the best PDF viewer, signer, and light markup for Linux.