Firefox 87 will highlight ‘find in page’ results in scroll bar

Mozilla provides Firefox 87 with a new feature, which highlights search results from the ‘find in this page’ function in the scroll bar. This makes it easier for users to see where on the web page the search results are located. Firefox 87 should be released in March.

The new feature is already included in the current version of Firefox Nightly, reports Austrian developer Sören Hentzschel, who regularly writes about upcoming Mozilla developments. The function works within the ‘find in this page’ function, which is activated by pressing the Ctrl+F keys. The function only works when the ‘highlight all’ or ‘highlight all’ button of the search function is active.

Users can try the feature in Firefox Nightly by adding the ui.textHighlightBackground option as a string on the about:config page. Then users can enter a CSS color code as the value, such as “darkred” or “blue”. This also changes the color used for highlighting search results on the page itself. With the release of Firefox 87 these should become separate options.

According to the Firefox release calendar, version 87 of the web browser will be released on March 23, 2021. More new features will be released next year. For example, Mozilla is working on a new design for Firefox, under the working title Proton. That new design should be fully introduced with Firefox 89, which is scheduled to release on May 18. The introduction of the new design is still subject to change.

Firefox 87 highlights search results in the scroll bar. Click for full size