Firefox 71 arrives with Picture-in-Picture support on Windows for all video sites, Enhanced Tracking Protection and Lockwise password manager improvements, more
Mozilla today launched Firefox 71 for Windows, Mac, Linux, Android, and iOS. Firefox 71 includes Lockwise password manager improvements …
Context & Ripple Effects
Firefox 71 continues a privacy cadence Mozilla has run all year: Firefox 67 added cryptomining and fingerprinting protection in May, then June brought default third-party cookie blocking alongside the desktop arrival of the password manager rebranded as Lockwise. Last month's Firefox 70 pushed further with social tracking blocked by default and a personalized report showing how many trackers were stopped — so this release's Enhanced Tracking Protection refinements land as an incremental step in a visible sequence, not a one-off.
The other half of the update rounds out features Mozilla had already seeded: Picture-in-Picture reaches every video site on Windows, and Lockwise gets its first major upgrade since the June rebrand. The through-line holds into later coverage — password tooling deepened again by Firefox 76's breach alerts, and Mozilla eventually extended both threads with multiple PiP windows and Total Cookie Protection in 2021.
First-order effects
- Windows users gain Picture-in-Picture on any video site rather than a whitelist of partners, removing Mozilla's need to negotiate per-site support; Lockwise users get a smoother password-management workflow inside the browser they already use.
- Sites relying on trackers face tighter default filtering as Enhanced Tracking Protection matures beyond the social-tracking defaults introduced in Firefox 70.
Second-order effects
- Rival browsers are pressed to match universal PiP and default-on tracking protection as table stakes, since Firefox is shipping both without requiring site opt-ins — raising the baseline Chrome, Safari, and Edge must meet on privacy and video UX.
- Password-manager vendors feel squeeze from the browser-embedded route: with Lockwise improving in-browser after the June rebrand and Firefox 76 adding site breach alerts, standalone vaults lose the convenience argument on Mozilla's platform.
Third-order effects
- The steady drumbeat from cookie blocking through ETP hardening points toward tracking protection becoming a browser-enforced default rather than a user setting — a trajectory that culminates in Total Cookie Protection and would push ad-tech toward non-cookie identifiers if the pattern holds.
- Browsers consolidating passwords, breach alerts, and media playback natively suggest platform vendors absorbing categories once owned by extensions and standalone apps, with each monthly Firefox release widening that built-in surface.
The trend: Browser makers are turning privacy and built-in utilities into default-on, continuously shipped features, with Mozilla's rapid release cadence using each version bump to widen that gap.