Firefox adds automatic picture-in-picture so you can stream and surf more easily

Mozilla has added a new toggle to Firefox that makes activating picture-in-picture video streaming a little bit easier.

Firefox has offered picture-in-picture functionality for five years. If you wanted to keep a video going in the foreground while switching over to another tab, however, you had to do it manually.

Turn the new setting on and you won't have to hover with your mouse and click to pop out a video when you change tabs. Firefox will do it automatically.

Switch back to the main video tab and Firefox will close the picture-in-picture view and return the video to its original location. Playback will continue uninterrupted while Firefox does its thing.

It's not a massive change, but it's certainly a welcome one if you're a frequent user of picture-in-picture mode. Flipping a switch once and letting Firefox pop videos down to the corner is nice addition to the browser's multitasking capabilities.

Automatic picture-in-picture only landed in the nightly Firefox builds recently, so it may not pop up in the stable release for a while.

If you're curious whether this is a difference-maker for you, download Firefox nightly and take it for a spin.

The nightly build installs separately from the stable release. You're free to experiment with new features when you want and fire up the stable version back up when you're done.

To activate automatic picture-in-picture in Firefox nightly, open a new tab and enter about:preferences#experimental in the address bar. You'll see the option for picture-in-picture auto-open on tab switch.

Check the box next to it and you're good to go — no browser restart is required.

via Ghacks

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