The printer, the camera and the router in your house have addresses that exist only inside your own network and cannot be seen from outside it. But a page open in your browser can knock on those addresses from the inside. Firefox already blocked that for one kind of connection; the new release extends it to a second.
What changed
Local network access protection now covers WebSocket connections too. A site that wants to open a persistent channel to a device inside your network needs your permission first, rather than doing it with no notice.
The rest of the release
- Tab grouping: the browser suggests gathering related tabs into a group, and suggests a name for it. The feature is rolling out gradually rather than to everyone at once.
- Translation inside frames: full-page translation now covers the content of embedded frames, and language detection runs on every load.
- Profile backup: local backup of your profile is now available on Mac as well.
- Cookie exceptions: a specific site can be exempted from cookie clearing on close, without giving up the other protections.
- A changeable icon: on Windows, a different app icon can be chosen from settings.
Fixes you notice
Noticeably faster seeking within video on every operating system, a fix for an invisible window on Mac, a hidden taskbar that would not work on Windows, and a clash between full-screen mode and the taskbar in picture-in-picture.
Photo: a wireless router. By Syced, CC0 via Wikimedia Commons.
Source: Mozilla, Firefox 154 release notes, 18 August 2026.
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