Mozilla detailed in an official blog post that Firefox 149 is set to ship next week, bringing with it a slate of long-anticipated features that signal a meaningful shift in how the browser positions itself against Chrome and Edge in an increasingly competitive market.

The headline addition is a native, no-cost proxy service that Mozilla has been quietly developing since it first surfaced in testing last October. Rather than a full VPN in the traditional tunneling sense, the feature routes up to 50 GB of monthly traffic through Mozilla's own proxy infrastructure — masking your IP address and adding a layer of network-level privacy without requiring a separate subscription or third-party client. At launch, availability is limited to users in the US, Germany, France, and the UK, with broader regional rollout presumably to follow based on infrastructure capacity and regulatory considerations.

Equally notable is the introduction of native split-screen browsing. For anyone working across multiple sources simultaneously — researchers, writers, developers cross-referencing documentation — the ability to pin two tabs side by side within a single window is a genuine productivity upgrade that previously required either a third-party extension or manual window management. Rounding out the 149 feature set is tab annotations, letting users attach persistent notes directly to open tabs, a small but practical addition for anyone managing complex, multi-tab workflows.

All three features go live with the Firefox 149 release on March 24th. Mozilla isn't stopping there, however — later this spring the browser will receive a redesigned, streamlined settings interface aimed at reducing navigational friction, alongside a dedicated AI sidebar panel currently accessible by joining the waitlist. The AI integration in particular reflects a broader industry trend of browsers evolving into ambient computing surfaces, with Mozilla clearly intent on staking out its own position in that space on its own privacy-first terms.