Firefox 80 comes with support for VA-API acceleration in X11 and these other news

Today, August 25, Mozilla had a launch that just occurred on the calendar. Is about Firefox 80, a new major version that has arrived after a v79 It did not introduce any maintenance updates, which is good news because it meant that it did not have major bugs, but it is also strange or unusual. It is also strange or a bit disappointing that a jump of ten does not include much more outstanding news.

Among the most interesting, there are two novelties, but one of them for macOS and another for Windows. Users of the Microsoft operating system will see how the browser theme changes automatically depending on the theme, light or dark, that we are using in the operating system. Users of Apple's desktop operating system will see how WebGL power preferences allow non-performance critical applications and applets to request the low-power GPU instead of the high-power GPU on multi-GPU systems.

What's new in Firefox 80

According to release note, Firefox 80 comes with these news:

• Support for VA-API acceleration in X11 on Linux.
• Firefox can now be set as the default system PDF viewer.
• The name reported by accessibility tools for items in multi-level tree controls no longer includes incorrect item information at deeper levels, providing users with the correct level of content when using a screen reader.
• Fixed several crashes when using a screen reader, including a frequent crash when using the JAWS screen reader.
• The Firefox development tools received significant fixes that allowed screen reader users to take advantage of some of the tools that were previously inaccessible.
• SVG title and description elements (tags and descriptions) are now properly exposed to assistive technology products such as screen readers.
• For users with reduced motion settings, they have reduced a number of animations, such as tab loading, to reduce motion for users with migraines and epilepsy.
• The new Plugin Block List has been enabled to improve performance and scalability.

Firefox 80 It is now available for download from its official website, which we can access from this link. Windows and macOS users will be able to download a self-updating installer, while Linux users will download binaries that will also be automatically updated from the browser. As for those of us who use the version offered by our Linux distribution, Firefox 80 will appear as an update in the next few hours.