Mozilla has released Firefox 156, the latest version of its popular web browser, available for Windows, macOS, Linux, and Android. This update focuses on performance improvements and stability, rather than major changes to the browser’s design. Key updates include faster PDF opening, reduced memory usage when handling large JPEG images, and a fix for a bug that disconnected users from the internet when using the built-in free VPN. Firefox 156 was released just fifteen days after Firefox 155, continuing Mozilla’s new, more frequent update schedule. One of the major performance improvements involves Firefox’s built-in PDF reader, which is powered by PDF.js, a custom technology developed by Mozilla. Previously, the PDF reader only started working when a document was opened, which caused a slight delay. Now, it initializes in the background as soon as the browser starts, reducing the time it takes to open a PDF by up to 45%. Another key change involves how Firefox handles large JPEG images. The browser now uses a faster decoding method from the libjpeg-turbo library, which significantly lowers memory usage—up to 20 times less on the largest images—and speeds up decoding by about twice as much. The update also addresses a bug introduced in Firefox 155 that caused the built-in free VPN to completely cut off network access. It also fixes an issue that prevented some HTTP websites from loading when using DNS over HTTPS, a privacy-enhancing feature. Additional improvements include fixes for disappearing subtitles in Picture-in-Picture mode, better playback of high-resolution FLAC files on sites like Bilibili, and a problem where bookmarks could be accidentally moved during drag-and-drop operations. On macOS, Firefox can now launch automatically at startup, and enterprise deployment settings now support the platform. On Android, users will see “previous” and “next” buttons in media playback notifications, and the browser now uses the system’s native sharing options on Android 14 while keeping some Firefox-specific actions. Mozilla plans to release Firefox 157 in two weeks, which will include the default deployment of Nova, a major visual redesign of the browser. This update will bring a fresh look to Firefox’s interface, aiming to improve user experience with a more modern and streamlined design.