Firefox tests out price comparison tool in the US

The holiday season is upon us so what better time for Firefox to be testing out a new price comparison tool. This new Firefox plugin being tested is called Price Wise. It can track prices of products across five major storefronts in the US—namely Amazon, Best Buy, eBay, Home Depot, and Walmart. The add-on will let you add products to a list where you can compare their prices over time and even score a deal you might not see otherwise. The retailers were chosen because these shopfronts are said to be among the top 10 online shops visited by Firefox users. Unfortunately, it isn’t available for international users just yet. But we’re still hoping it makes its way to us soon.

Source: The Next Web

Pro Tip: Use Firefox to narrate website content to you

Voice is increasingly becoming a viable interface with voice assistants and speech synthesis improving with each generation. A lot of users will avoid reading long stories but they will watch a video and it is quite likely they will listen to a podcast. If you are a Firefox browser user, you can tap on the Reader Mode which strips formatting and focuses on text and some images. On the left-hand side of this mode is an option to invoke a narrator that will read the contents of the website to you.

Even if you're a content creator, it helps to try and 'hear' your posts to see if they are long winded. This also comes in handy if you're wearing headphones and are tired of reading (or are on your phone simultaneously). The voice and technology is quite good and a great option which should be on every browser.

Calling on Google Hangouts now works on Firefox again

After Firefox dropped support for plugins (aside from Flash), making video and audio calls to work using Google Hangouts wasn’t possible on the browser—until today, that is. Hangouts on Firefox now works thanks to the use of WebRTC. This means the app works on the browser without the use of plugins. One caveat though is it only works for the consumer version of Hangouts at the moment, support for Hangouts Meet is coming at a later date.

Source: Android Police

Firefox Focus for iOS simplifies web browsing, acts as ad blocker

Firefox just released a new browser for iOS users, which it hopes gives people more control over what information about them gets shared. Firefox Focus is a new private browser designed to not leave record on the phone. It has no tabs, menus, or pop-ups. It’s set by default to block many of the trackers that are seen around the web. This is also said to contribute to the performance boost of the browser, since trackers are also said to slow down the loading of web pages. The app is also said to work as a content blocker for Safari on iOS and you can enable Tracking Protection on both Safari and Firefox Focus.