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How to enable HTTP/3 support in Firefox


Karlston

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How to enable HTTP/3 support in Firefox

HTTP/3 is the next major version of the Hypertext Transfer Protocol and one of the main changes that will go along with it is that the new transport protocol QUIC will be used instead of TCP. QUIC is designed to improve the performance and security of Internet connections.

 

Google Chrome, Microsoft Edge and Mozilla Firefox support QUIC but the feature may not be turned on by default in all clients.

 

The latest Firefox Nightly version introduces support for HTTP/3 and QUIC, and users of the web browser may enable support for the new protocol in Firefox to take advantage of it.

 

Firefox Nightly is a development version of the browser. Mozilla may still work on some of the features that become available in the browser and it may take some time before features land in stable versions of the Firefox web browser.

 

firefox enable http3

 

Here is what needs to be done to enable support for HTTP/3 in the Firefox web browser:

  1. Make sure you run the latest Firefox Nightly version, e.g. by selecting Menu > Help > About Nightly. I tested this in Firefox Nightly 80.0a1 from June 30, 2020.
  2. Type about:config in the browser's address bar and hit Enter to load the page.
  3. Confirm that you will be careful if a warning is displayed.
  4. Search for the preference network.http.http3.enabled.
    1. Set it to TRUE to enable support for HTTP/3
    2. Set it to FALSE to disable support for HTTP/3

You may want to test the feature once it has been enabled. Note that it is not necessary to restart the browser after making the change.

 

You may test HTTP/3 in Firefox in the following way:

  1. Load https://cloudflare-quic.com/ in the web browser's address bar.
  2. Tap on the F12 key to open the Developer Tools and switch to the Network tab. Alternatively, select Menu > Web Developer > Network.
  3. Right-click on any column header and select "Protocol" from the menu to add a column for the protocol.
  4. Reload the website.

You should notice that HTTP/3 is used for many of the connections to the page.

 

test http3 firefox

 

Support for HTTP/3 will be enabled by default eventually in Firefox and other browsers. For now, it is necessary to enable it manually in Firefox.

 

 

How to enable HTTP/3 support in Firefox

 

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SacredCultivator

Tried this and sadly it broke YouTube. Doesn't load.
But for most other sites, works fine.

Thought maybe it was my YouTube Extension, but disabling that resulted in the same. Not loading.

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AZwaffelForAWaff

Yeah, it does make YouTube and some other Google-based sites load slower, but only Firefox-based browsers are affected. Chrome browsers work faster with QUIC/HTTP3. I think it is because Google is trying to privatize QUIC/HTTP3 as their own technology.

 

EDIT: Actually, ever since Firefox version 78.0, QUIC works mostly without issues for YouTube. You have to make sure uBlock Origin or other ad blockers aren't involved in YouTube playback because QUIC is often used for ads and ad blockers can block it. For example, AdGuard block all QUIC connections in VPN Mode on Android. It only allows them in HTTP Auto Proxy mode, which does not filter UDP.

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SacredCultivator

Int hat case, if I use uBlock Origin, how do I check on that blocking? But then again with QUIC, which I assume I have enabled on FF, has worked with Youtube, just not when I enable HTTP3, but as you mentioned, might be a Google thing (for now).

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