The launch of the new version of Firefox 90 has just been announced and in this new version of the browser a series of improvements, changes and especially new features are presented, the most important of which are directed towards the version of the browser for Windows, in addition to that also in Firefox 90 the support of the FTP protocol in the browser.
Of the novelties that stand out in this new version of Firefox 90 is that a new third-party page is introduced that has the purpose of help users identify compatibility issues caused by third-party modules and applications (in about: third-party). In addition to that also for the Windows version of the browser, a new option to install updates in the background is included.
Another of the changes that stands out in this new version is the inclusion of SmartBlock V2 which is a crawler blocking mechanism that was introduced since Firefox 87 and has now been updated in order to add the ability to block third-party Facebook scripts in private browsing mode.
Also, now in this new version of Firefox 90 the action of opening images in a new tab has been modified And it is that now when we want to open an image we will no longer be allowed to do it in another browser tab, but now force us to do it in a window in the background. As such, this change has not had positive comments and a few hours after the browser was launched, many users have begun to complain about this, for example we can see this on Reddit at the link below.
Also in this new version of the browser code related to FTP is completely removed, with which from now on when trying to open links with the protocol identifier "ftp: //", the browser will call an external application in the same way as the controllers "irc: //" and "tg : // ». We must remember that since the launch of Firefox 88 which was released recently (April 19) it was mentioned that FTP support was disabled by default (including setting the browserSettings.ftpProtocolEnabled to read-only).
The reason for the termination of FTP support is the lack of protection of this protocol against modification and interception of transit traffic during MITM attacks. According to the Firefox developers, today there is no reason to use FTP over HTTPS to download resources. Additionally, the FTP support code in Firefox is very old, creates maintenance issues, and has a history of identifying a large number of vulnerabilities in the past.
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
Now for those who prefer to use Snap packages, They will be able to install the new version as soon as it is released in the Snap repositories.
But they can get the package directly from Mozilla's FTP. With the help of a terminal by typing the following command:
wget https://ftp.mozilla.org/pub/firefox/releases/90.0/snap/firefox-90.0.snap
And to install the package we just type:
sudo snap install firefox-90.0.snap
Or on the other hand, they can execute the Snap update command, with which not only the browser will update but all the applications that they have installed through Snap. To do this, they simply have to open a terminal and execute the following command in it:
sudo snap update
Or also with the command:
sudo snap refresh 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