How to enable HTTP/3 support in Firefox

[harlan4096]

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.

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.

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.

Now You: What are your expectations for HTTP/3?
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