New feature available in the latest Chrome versions

Aug 9, 2018 12:14 GMT  ·  By

Mozilla Firefox is considered the number one alternative to Google Chrome, despite Microsoft pushing so hard for Windows 10 users to stick with Microsoft Edge.

Firefox, however, is constantly evolving, and every single release brings functionality that you may not necessarily find elsewhere, with the developing team also refining performance and stability on the most recent versions of the supported operating system.

Despite not being a major release, Firefox 61.0.2, which landed on the desktop only a few hours ago, comes with a new feature that many may ignore at first, but which could prove to be particularly useful for some.

Called automatic restoring of browsing sessions, this new option technically provides seamless browsing experience even when Windows reboots to complete an update or when you manually do the same thing without closing the browser first.

While this feature is only supported by Firefox 61.0.2 on Windows, it is gradually released to users, and Mozilla explains the following in the change log of this new build:

“Adds support for automatically restoring your Firefox session after Windows restarts. Currently, this feature is not enabled by default for most users, but will be gradually enabled over the coming weeks.”

Mozilla Firefox 62.0.1

While there’s no specific ETA as to when we could get the new feature, a simple hack allows us to enable automatic browsing session restoring in Mozilla Firefox without waiting any longer.

The tutorial involves changing more advanced settings that aren’t normally available to all users, so in case you’re afraid you may change something that could break down the browser, you better check twice before making any modifications.

In Mozilla Firefox, type about:config in the address bar. A warning message should show up telling you pretty much the same thing as we did in the warning above: “This might void your warranty: changing these advanced settings can be harmful to the stability, security, and performance of this application. You should only continue if you are sure of what you are doing.”

Press the button that reads I accept the risk! and then in the search box at the top of the screen type the following code:

toolkit.winRegisterApplicationRestart As an alternative, you can simply copy and paste the following code right in the address bar of Mozilla Firefox to get you straight to the said setting (though you should still see the warning if you’ve never opened this configuration screen): about:config?filter=toolkit.winRegisterApplicationRestart By default, this setting is set to false, which means it is disabled. What you need to do to enable it is simply double-click the entry in the about:config screen, and you should notice the value changing from false to true. As long as it’s set to true, it means it’s enabled – in other words, if at some point you want to return to the original configuration or you just want to disable this feature, head over to the same screen and set it to false.
Changing the setting in Mozilla Firefox 62.0.1

If you’ve made the right changes, Firefox should automatically restore your browsing session the next time you reboot the computer without closing the browser first.

Mozilla says it could still take a few more weeks until the feature is enabled for everyone, so you can refer to the hack above to use it in the meantime.

For the time being, this feature only works on Windows, and right now, there are reports that only Windows 10 users can rely on this trick to enable automatic browsing restoring. Sooner or later, however, it should work on all Windows versions, though there’s still no word on whether Mozilla plans to bring it to other platforms or not.

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Mozilla Firefox 62.0.1
Mozilla Firefox 62.0.1Changing the setting in Mozilla Firefox 62.0.1
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