Mozilla released recently the release of the new version of «Firefox 136«, a release that introduces significant changes to tab organization, security, and performance, especially on Linux and macOS. Additionally, updates have been released for the extended support branches 115.21.0 and 128.8.0.
Firefox 136 fixes 25 vulnerabilities, Of these, 18 are considered serious. Most are related to memory management errors, such as buffer overflows and use-after-free.
Vertical tabs and new sidebar
One of the most notable changes is the possibility of arrange tabs vertically in a sidebar, an option that improves visibility on wide screens and makes navigation easier when you have many tabs open. The new sidebar can be located on the left or right side of the browser and has two modes:
- Expanded: Displays tab titles along with action buttons.
- Collapsed: Only shortcuts to tools like bookmarks, history, tabs from other devices, and the AI assistant are visible.
To activate this feature, simply go to Settings → General → Browser Layout → Show Sidebar.
Optimization improvements on Linux and macOS
Firefox 136 too Adds improvements for Linux users With AMD graphics cards, you can now benefit from the hardware acceleration in video decoding, improving performance and reducing CPU usage. In addition, they have also started to publish Binary packages in DEB and TAR format for ARM64 architectures (AArch64), facilitating installation on various distributions. Coming soon, the release of packages in Flatpak format is expected.
On macOS, Firefox 136 implements improvements in power consumption by assigning background tabs to low-power cores, optimizing performance on laptops. In addition, it now Supports hardware acceleration for HEVC video playback (H.265) and uses LZMA compression in DMG installers, reducing file sizes.
Security and privacy improvements
On the security side, Firefox 136 has implemented the HTTPS-First mode enabled by default, which prioritizes loading pages via HTTPS instead of HTTP, both when entering a URL and when loading sub-resources such as images or scripts.
Furthermore, The management of data stored in the browser has been improved, allowing you to independently delete the information used for auto-completion of forms, without having to delete your browsing history.
Another important improvement is the ability to selectively disable blocking of certain social network widgets, if they are restricted by Enhanced Tracking Protection (ETP) or in private browsing mode.
Of the other changes that stand out:
- Removed the “Save to Pocket” button from the new tab page. It is now available via the context menu.
- Expansion of the weather forecast widget to new countries: Mexico, Brazil, Argentina and Chile.
- Address autocomplete enabled on web forms for UK users.
- Default PNG format when copying images, which preserves transparency.
- For developers, CodeMirror 6 has been integrated into the debugger, offering a more fluid code editing experience.
- The Intl.DurationFormat API allows durations to be formatted based on the user's locale.
- As for WebRTC, Firefox now supports streaming video in AV1 format and allows sending multiple versions of the same H.264 video, optimizing compatibility with different devices.
Interested in knowing more about it, you can consult the release notes in the following link
How to install Firefox on Linux?
If you are already a Firefox user, you should know that you can easily update to the latest version accessing the configuration menu. Those with automatic updates enabled need not worry as they will receive the new version without manual intervention.
Alternatively, if you prefer not to wait for the automatic update, you can do it manually by going to Menu > Help > About Firefox. This will open a window showing the installed version and, if the feature is enabled, it will check for available updates.
For Ubuntu, Linux Mint and other derivatives users from Ubuntu, too It is possible to update Firefox through the official PPATo do this, open a terminal and enter the following commands:
sudo add-apt-repository ppa:ubuntu-mozilla-security/ppa -y sudo apt-get update sudo apt install firefox
Another available installation option is via Flatpak. To use this method, you need to have Flatpak support on your system. Once enabled, you can install Firefox by running the following command in the terminal:
flatpak install flathub org.mozilla.firefox
As for those who already have the browser installed, it is enough to execute the following command to not only update Firefox, but also all its applications that are in Flatpak format:
flatpack update
In the case of those who prefer the use of Snap, the installation of the browser can be done by typing the following command:
sudo snap install firefox
And to update the applications that we have installed in Snap format, just type the following in the terminal:
sudo snap refresh