Firefox 116, the latest release of the popular web browser promoted by Mozilla, has brought forth an array of new features and improvements. One of the most notable changes in this version is the improved support for Wayland, a protocol that defines the communication between a display server and its clients.
Firefox 116 enhances Wayland support by allowing the creation of Wayland-only builds when compiling from sources. This means that if your operating system is using a Wayland session by default, you should be able to use Firefox on Wayland natively without any dependencies on X11
This change has been a long journey for Mozilla, as it marks an exciting milestone in the improvement of native Wayland support for the Firefox web browser on Linux
The Wayland-only build process was a complex task that required several changes in the Firefox code. For instance, the developers had to ensure that all Wayland required components that get disabled when disabling MOZ_X11 were re-enabled. They also had to allow builds without MOZ_X11 when the toolkit is cairo-gtk3-wayland and X11 dependencies are missing
Users have reported that by setting the MOZ_ENABLE_WAYLAND=1 environment variable, Firefox works pretty well on Wayland. However, there have been occasional issues with copy & paste operations stopping between different pairs of applications. As a workaround, users have been pasting into an intermediate app
To address these issues, Firefox 94 and later versions have improved clipboard functionality in Wayland mode. Users can test this by setting widget.wayland.async-clipboard.enabled to true in about:config and restarting the browser
The default Wayland mode's feasibility depends on testing which needs mutter 41.0 or later. Mozilla is using this in their try to test builds
The Wayland-only build option in Firefox 116 is a significant step forward in the browser's evolution. It not only improves the user experience for those using Wayland but also lays the groundwork for future developments in Firefox's support for this protocol. Mozilla's commitment to improving Firefox's compatibility with Wayland illustrates the open-source community's adaptability and willingness to embrace new technologies and standards.