You may have noticed in your travels around the internet that your browser's address bar occasionally turns green and displays a padlock — that's HTTPS, or a secure version of the Hypertext Transfer Protocol, swinging into action. This little green padlock is becoming vitally important as more and more of your online security is eroded. Just because your ISP can now see what sites you browse on doesn't mean they have to know all the content your consuming.

Browser vendors have made massive strides with JavaScript performance. Google kicked things off with its V8 engine, but since then, the likes of Mozilla and Microsoft have come back with snappy virtual machines of their own. But JavaScript can only take you so far. The next step is WebAssembly (wasm), which supports compilation from C/C++ and near-native performance in the browser. Both Chrome and Firefox now have wasm enabled by default.

Firefox: Snoozing emails is a pretty common practice these days, so it makes sense to bring that same feature to your browser. Chrome has the Tab Snooze extension, and Firefox users can get it using Firefox's own Test Pilot extension.

When Google originally launched Chrome, it made a point of promoting the browser's performance over its competitors. But that was almost 10 years ago and both Chrome and Apple's desktop OS have changed... a lot. Given this large chunk of time, has Chrome remained on top of the pile when it comes to grunt? The answer is "mostly".

It's easy enough to collect a large number of site bookmarks to read on a rainy day... and promptly forget about them. If your favourites bar is starting to get cluttered and you're not in the mood to check each on individual, clean-up tools exist for both Firefox and Chrome to save you the effort.

Many of us spend most of our time on the web, but all too often browsing sessions can descend into a sprawling mess of memory-hogging, audio-playing tabs that bring your computer and your productivity to a shuddering halt. It doesn't have to be that way. These extensions and tricks can bring some simplicity back to your browsing.

When browser vendors make breaking changes to developer APIs, it's left to add-on and extension creators whether they fix their offerings. Usually, if it's a small change, no problem. But what about massive overhauls? For Luís Miguel, responsible for a number of popular Firefox add-ons, Mozilla's switch to the WebExtensions API this year will signal his exit from the add-on scene.

Browsers now come with all manner of developer tools for debugging websites, inspecting code and even making live changes. HTML, CSS and XML are easily interpreted and presented in human-readable form, but just-as-important formats such as JSON still come out as a wall of monospaced text. Soon that won't be the case for Firefox.

Most services you might use to save links for future reference or reading are part social network and part sharing service. They're designed to help you share those links, or make big lists. LinkLocker is none of those — it's completely private, and the only person who can see your bookmarks is you. It's perfect.

Chrome/Firefox/Opera: When Privacy Badger launched a few years ago, it was already a great tool to block third-party trackers, speed up the web and stop sites from watching your every move while you browse. The latest version is a huge improvement, in almost every way.

Web of Trust is a popular extension, one we ourselves have recommended in the past. Unfortunately, that trust was misplaced — the add-on has been removed from Chrome and Firefox's online repositories after it was alleged the creators were selling user data.

The web is rife with annoyances. Pop-over ads when you visit a page that you have to dismiss, sites that auto-play audio even in background tabs, pages that reload and take all the text you entered with it, they all suck. Here are some browser add-ons that make the web a better place for everyone.

Recent versions of Firefox come with Electrolysis, or "e10s" enabled, allowing the browser to launch tabs and add-ons in separate processes. What Firefox doesn't come with (for now at least) is a way to manage this new functionality, though one add-on developer has come to the rescue.

Firefox is still a strong browser and with Chrome getting heavier than ever, many are looking back to their old friend Firefox as an alternative. Plus, it’s still got one of the best, well-vetted extension libraries around. Here are the essential Firefox extensions you need to bend the web to your will.

The slow death of Adobe Flash marches on. Google has announced it will be blocking non-essential Flash content that runs in the background of webpages in September. Mozilla has already started doing this with its Firefox browser this month. Here's what you need to know.

Google has already committed to blocking almost all Adobe Flash content from its Chrome browser by the end of the year. Now Mozilla has said it stop certain non-essential Flash content from being displayed in the Firefox browser starting from August. Here's what you need to know.

Let's say you have multiple Twitter accounts, or several Google accounts, or even a few different bank accounts. It sucks to have to switch between those accounts in your browser. Firefox is testing out a new feature called Containers in its beta channel that hopes to fix this.

OK, anyone currently working on a browser add-on to customise YouTube can stop now. YouTube Plus, available for both Chrome and Firefox, has basically dropped the mic when it comes to tweaking your online video-watching experience.

Nothing lasts forever, including browser support and operating systems. Apple has already kicked OS X versions 10.8, 10.7 and 10.6 to the curb and in August this year, Firefox on these platforms will also be given its marching orders by Mozilla.