Hardened = Firefox hardening. Hardening is an option that I choose to implement to improve some aspects of privacy and security of beyond the out of the box Firefox factory settings. I use the settings as recommended in the book, Extreme Privacy - 4th Edition (2002) by Michael Bazzell.

I use the Firefox beta version only for one specific financial account (Chase) that will not work with hardened Firefox. I use the the Firefox beta version with no changes to the default out of the box settings. Using the Firefox beta version allows me to log in to my Chase account while still connected to my VPN.