Firefox 160 ships Mini Window, PiP speed controls, on-device speech recognition

Mozilla has released Firefox 160, adding Mini Window functionality that lets users detach tabs or webpage sections into persistent always-on-top windows for multitasking. The Picture-in-Picture player now supports adjustable playback speeds from 0.25x to 2.0x when the floating window is medium-sized or larger. On-device speech recognition through the Web Speech API works across 40 languages entirely locally, removing the need to transmit audio to remote services.

The release also expands MKV multimedia support to include FLAC, MP3, and PCM audio tracks, switches macOS WebGL rendering to Apple's Metal API for potential graphics performance gains, and improves PDF accessibility by embedding MathML in saved documents for screen reader compatibility. Privacy controls now include a "Never allow" option for repeated external application permission requests, and Android gains default Local Network Access restrictions requiring explicit site permission.

What changes in Firefox 160

• Mini Window: Users can move browser tabs or selected webpage sections into separate always-on-top windows, enabling persistent visibility while working across other applications or tabs.
• Picture-in-Picture speed controls: The floating video player now supports playback rate adjustment from 0.25x to 2.0x, accessible when the PiP window is at medium size or larger.
• On-device Web Speech API: Real-time speech-to-text recognition operates locally in 40 languages through the browser's Web Speech API implementation, eliminating remote audio transmission for supported sites.
• MKV multimedia expansion: The browser can now play Matroska container files containing FLAC, MP3, or PCM audio codecs, broadening native multimedia format support.
• macOS Metal WebGL: WebGL rendering on macOS now routes through Apple's Metal graphics API rather than legacy OpenGL paths, with potential performance improvements on compatible hardware.

Why it matters

The on-device speech recognition and Local Network Access restrictions reflect growing browser emphasis on privacy-preserving local computation and sandboxed network boundaries that align with Linux distribution security models. Linux users will receive Firefox 160 through standard distribution repositories, maintaining the open-source browser's position as the default alternative to Chromium-based engines across major distributions.