The Waterfox G4.0.5.1 update is now available for users. It fixes some issues that were introduced in prior builds, adds a couple of new options, and brings some changes to the themes.
What’s new in the Waterfox G4.0.5.1 update
Fixes
Search suggestions are now displayed properly with the Google, Startpage and Yahoo search engines. AVIF images are supported by the browser, and pictures will render on websites that use the format.
A new option is available in the about:preferences page (Settings), that allows you to prevent pinned tab icons from shrinking. The setting is enabled by default. Another option that this update introduces lets new tabs to open after the current tab, but this one is not enabled out of the box. The toggles for the new options are available under the General > Additional Tab Preferences section.
Themes
G4.0.5.1 brings the Lepton theme included in the browser up-to-date. While we are on the topic, the Firefox Modern Dynamic theme is now available in Waterfox. The white bar no longer appears at the bottom if you have a light theme enabled. The Tabs toolbar and status bar reflect the appropriate colors when dark theme is in use, including the status bar’s widget text colors. The Tabs toolbar when set to be displayed at the bottom, collapses automatically when full screen mode is activated.
Many users had reacted negatively to a UI change introduced with the initial release G4, they had complained that the icons displayed next to the labels were distracting, and cluttered the menu bar. There is no option to disable the icons, but if you dislike the visual elements and want to remove it, you may simply switch to a different theme. The icons are only displayed in the default theme, Lepton.
Does Waterfox G4.0.5.1 fix the DRM video playback problems?
The change log for the update does not mention anything related to DRM, but since it was a major issue with the previous build, I wanted to check if the patch fixes the bug. Unfortunately, even the latest version of Waterfox still has issues with DRM videos. Amazon Prime, for example, will not stream in Full HD, because Widevine is buggy. The streaming portal gives me the same error that I mentioned in the previous update. For what it’s worth, Firefox 95.0.2 with the same version of the Widevine plugin (4.10.2391.0), works perfectly on my computer. Spotify has the weird track skipping bug that I wrote about in the previous article, but the developer had already confirmed that the service was always broken with the browser.
Known issues in the build
Waterfox G4.0.5.1 does not fix the known issues related to add-on version numbers not being displayed, and the missing shortcuts for zoom, full screen and screenshot, in the statusbar. These have not been resolved since G4’s debut, probably because they are not at the top of the priority list.
Waterfox Classic has not been updated since it was moved to a separate project, that is to be expected since the development of the legacy browser will be slow, as it relies on the ease of porting fixes from Firefox ESR (Extended Support Release).
Do you use Waterfox G4? What do you think about the recent changes to it?
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