Firefox is an open source web browser developed for different platforms, it is coordinated by Mozilla and the Mozilla Foundation.
The new version of Firefox 114 has already been released and along with this release was also formed an update to the Firefox long-term support branch 102.12.0 In addition to innovations and bug fixes, Fixed 15 vulnerabilities in Firefox 114.
14 vulnerabilities are marked as dangerous, of which 13 vulnerabilities (collected under CVE-2023-34416 and CVE-2023-34417) are caused by memory problems, such as buffer overflows and access to already freed memory areas.
Main new features of Firefox 114
In this new version of Firefox 114 the technology WebTransport is enabled by default, which defines the protocol and accompanying JavaScript API for sending and receiving data between the browser and the server. The communication channel is organized over HTTP/3 using the QUIC protocol as transport.
Another of the changes that stands out in this new version is that in the web development tools, the capabilities of the “Copy as cURL” function have been extended in the network activity monitoring panel (added support for the “--compressed» in curl).
It also highlights the configuration of «DNS over HTTPS” has been moved to the main section "Privacy and security", In addition to adding several levels of protection based on "DNS over HTTPS", by default Firefox automatically activates DoH when supported by the current provider and falls back to the local resolver in case of problems.
On the other hand, in this new version of Firefox 114 on Linux, macOS and Windows 7 platforms, support for passwordless authentication is provided via USB devices that support the FIDO2/WebAuthn protocol, with the ability to set a PIN code for activation.
En macOS, added the ability to capture video from the camera in all supported resolutions, including resolutions higher than 1280x720.
For users from France, Italy and Spain, the output of recommended articles is enabled by the Pocket service. It is worth mentioning that for those who do not want this feature, can disable Pocket content recomendado in the configurator (Firefox Home Content/Recommended by Pocket) and the option "browser.newtabpage.activity-stream.feeds.topsites" in about:config.
As for the Firefox 114 for Android, offers the ability to open a print dialog by calling the window.print() method, also a button has been added to the built-in PDF viewer to open a PDF document in an external application and reduced CPU load with background tabs provides smoother animation on the tab bar.
Of the other changes that stand out:
- The lang() CSS pseudo-class uses string matching semantics to define language codes, which can use the "*" wildcard instead of prefix detection.
- Added support for comma-separated language lists.
- Added the "-webkit-text-security" CSS property, which can be used to hide characters in input fields, displaying icons of the same type instead.
- Improved interface for the inspection of facilities for people with disabilities.
- Support for the new @import CSS rule syntax defined in the CSS 4 specification has been added to the watch panel and the display accuracy of import conditions has been improved.
- Implemented a UI to manage the exclusion list for "DNS over HTTPS".
- Added the ability to search for bookmarks directly from the "Bookmarks" menu.
- The button to call the bookmarks menu can now be placed on the toolbar.
- Added the ability to selectively search only local browsing history when switching to search from the History, Library, or Application menu.
- Added support for rearranging items in the plugin list.
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