How to enable Site-Specific Browser (SSB) in Firefox

If you've ever expected Firefox to catch up with Chrome's Progressive Web App (PWA) functionality, your wait seems to have worked. Mozilla has mentioned the Site-Specific Browser (SSB) feature several times over the years and has been supporting it on mobile devices since 2017, but starting with Firefox 73, SSB seems to be aiming to become a the core part of the desktop browser.

Currently, SSB is hidden as an experimental feature, but you can still activate and use it in any major Firefox browser version (Nightly, Developer, Beta, Stable), before it officially becomes available. Launched and available by default.

What does the Site-Specific Browser (SSB) do?

Firefox and SSB browsers

Site-Specific Browser will basically create an 'application' that runs in a separate browser version and acts like a desktop application. That means some websites will come with taskbar buttons, offline functionality, program-like launch and many other perks, making them easier to use than browser-based websites. traditional.

This feature also removes a lot of toolbars, menus and other UI functions of the browser, limiting you primarily to what websites are programmed. Depending on the application or website, this may make your experience smoother.

How to enable Site-Specific Browser (SSB)

1. Type about: config in the Firefox address bar and click on the warning.

Enter about: config in the Firefox address bar and click on the warning

2. In the search bar, type:

browser.ssb.enabled

3. You will see the Boolean value here, so press the arrow button on the right to convert the value to True.

Convert the value to True

4. Restart the browser.

How to use Site-Specific Browser (SSB)

1. Access any website you want to use as an application. The Discord chat application is a prime example because it already has a desktop application that uses the Electron framework to run web technologies as a program, meaning the SSB / PWA version will look quite similar to the current desktop version. have.

2. Click the three dots on the address bar to the right of the URL.

3. Choose either of the 'Install this website as app' or 'Launch Site Specific Browser' options (this may vary depending on the version you use).

Choose either option 'Install this website as app' or 'Launch Site Specific Browser'

4. This will install a shortcut to the application directly on the desktop, allowing you to access it like a normal program. If the application already has a desktop version, you can even use both at the same time if you want.

5. To manage websites installed in the future, navigate to the hamburger menu and look for 'Site Browsers' or 'Installed websites' (depending on your version of Firefox).

Search for 'Site Browsers' or 'Installed websites'

6. Clicking on a website here will launch it in a new window. In the current version of Stable (Firefox 74), that's all you can do, but both Developer and Nightly include an X on the right to allow you to delete the installed site.