The launch of the new version of the popular web browser Firefox 103 in which by default, Full Cookie Protection mode is enabled, which was previously used only when opening sites in private browsing mode and choosing strict mode to block unwanted content (strict).
In Full Cookie Protection mode, separate isolated storage is used for Cookies from each site, which does not allow the use of Cookies to track movement between sites, as all Cookies set from third-party blocks loaded into the site (iframe, js, etc.) are linked to the site from which these blocks were downloaded and are not transmitted when accessing these blocks from other sites.
Another of the changes that stands out is the improved performance on systems with monitors high refresh rate (120Hz+).
We can also find in this new version of Firefox 103, the built-in PDF viewer for documents with input forms, the required fields are highlighted.
In the mode “picture in picture”, the ability to change the font size of subtitles has been added and subtitle support was also provided when watching videos from Funimation, Dailymotion, Tubi, Hotstar and SonyLIV. Previously, subtitles were only displayed for YouTube, Prime Video, Netflix, HBO Max, Funimation, Dailymotion, Disney+, and sites that used the WebVTT (Web Video Text Track) format.
On Linux, WebGL performance issues are resolved using NVIDIA proprietary drivers in combination with DMA-Buf, also fixed an issue with very slow startup due to rendering content on local storage.
While for the version of Android fixed a crash when switching to split screen mode or when resizing the window, as well as an issue that caused videos to play backwards was also resolved. Fixed an issue that, under certain rare circumstances, caused a crash when opening the on-screen keyboard in an Android 12 environment.
Of the other changes that stand out from this new version:
- You can now use the cursor keys, Tab, and Shift+Tab to navigate through the buttons on the tab bar.
- The “Make Text Bigger” feature has been extended to all UI elements and content (previously it only affected the system font).
- Removed from configuration the ability to return support in certificates for digital signatures based on SHA-1 hashes, which have long been considered insecure.
- When copying text from web forms, non-breaking spaces are preserved to prevent automatic line breaks.
- Added support for portable streams to the Streams API, allowing ReadableStream, WritableStream, and TransformStream objects to be passed as arguments when calling postMessage() to outsource the execution of the operation to a web worker with data cloning in the background flat.
- For pages opened without HTTPS and from iframe blocks, cachesy API access is prohibited. CacheStorageCache
- Deprecated support for the previously deprecated scriptminsize and scriptsizemultiplier attributes.
- On Windows 10 and 11, the Firefox icon is pinned to the bar during installation.
- On the macOS platform, we switched to a more modern API for managing locks, which resulted in better interface responsiveness during high CPU load.
In addition to innovations and bug fixes, Firefox 103 fixes 10 vulnerabilities, of which 4 are marked as dangerous (summarized in CVE-2022-2505 and CVE-2022-36320) caused by memory problems, such as buffer overflows and access to freed memory areas.
Among the vulnerabilities with a moderate severity level, it is possible to point out the possibility of determining the position of the cursor through manipulations with the overflow and transformation CSS properties, and the Android version crashes when processing a very long URL.
Finally if you are interested in knowing more about it of this new version of the browser, you can check the details In the following link.
How to install or update the new version of Firefox in Ubuntu and derivatives?
As always, for those who already use firefox, they can simply access the menu to update to the latest version, that is, Firefox users who have not disabled automatic updates will receive the update automatically.
While for those who do not want to wait for that to happen they can select Menu> Help> About Firefox after the official launch to initiate a manual update of the web browser.
The screen that opens displays the currently installed version of the web browser and runs a check for updates, provided the functionality is enabled.
Another option to update, is if you are a user of Ubuntu, Linux Mint or some other derivative of Ubuntu, you can install or update to this new version with the help of the browser's PPA.
This can be added to the system by opening a terminal and executing the following command in it:
sudo add-apt-repository ppa:ubuntu-mozilla-security/ppa -y sudo apt-get update sudo apt install firefox
The last installation method that was added «Flatpak». To do this, they must have support for this type of package.
Installation is done by typing:
flatpak install flathub org.mozilla.firefox