Firefox is a popular web browser
A few days ago, the release of the new version of Firefox 119 was announced , a version in which new features, improvements and above all bug fixes have been introduced.
Firefox 119 is notable for its updated View page interface, which makes it easier to access previously viewed content. The new version of Firefox View provides information about all open tabs in any window and also adds the ability to view your browsing history sorted by date or site.
Another notable change in this new version is the ability to import plugins from Chrome and other Chromium-based browsers. An option to transfer plugins has been added to the "Import Data" dialog box in the about:preferences#general page.
Firefox 119 implemented support for the ECH (Encrypted Client Hello) mechanism, which continues the development of ESNI and is used to encrypt information about TLS session parameters, such as the requested domain name.
In addition, the built-in PDF viewer's document editing capabilities have been improved , now including support for inserting images and text annotations, as well as the previously available freehand line drawing and text comment attachments. The new PDF editing mode is enabled for only some users; to force it, you must enable the "pdfjs.enableStampEditor" setting in the about:config page.
It's also worth noting that the settings related to restoring an interrupted session after closing the browser have been modified. Unlike previous versions, information about not only active tabs but also recently closed tabs will now be saved between sessions. This allows you to restore accidentally closed tabs after restarting and view a list of them in Firefox View. By default, the last 25 tabs opened in the past 7 days will be saved. Data about tabs in closed windows will also be taken into account, and the list of closed tabs will be processed in the context of all windows at once, not just the current window.
The capabilities of Full Cookie Protection mode have been expanded. This mode uses separate, isolated cookie storage for each site, preventing cookies from being used to track user movement between sites. The new version introduces URI scheme isolation, which could potentially be used to transmit information suitable for user tracking.
Firefox 119 for Windows added support for a system setting that hides the cursor while typing, while the Android version removed the crash that occurred when viewing a video in full screen. Support was also added for media queries regarding contrast preference and reduced transparency preference in the Android 14 environment.
Regarding the improvements for developers, we can find that for custom elements, which extend the functionality of existing HTML elements, support for ARIA attributes is included, which makes these elements more accessible for people with disabilities.
The Cross-Origin-Embedder-Policy HTTP header, which controls Cross-Origin isolation mode and allows you to define safe use rules on the privileged operations page, now supports the “no credential” parameter to disable the transmission of related information with credentials, such as Cookies and client certificates.
Other notable changes include:
- The Web Authentication API has added support for credProps properties, which allow you to determine the presence of credentials after creation or registration.
- Added the parseCreationOptionsFromJSON(), parseRequestOptionsFromJSON(), and toJSON() methods to the PublicKeyCredential API to convert objects into a JSON representation suitable for serialization/deserialization and transfer to the server.
- In the web developer tools, the interface for interactive work with CSS (Inactive CSS Styles) has been improved, including the ability to identify CSS properties that do not affect the element, and also added full support for pseudo-elements, such as ":: first letter”, “::cue” and “::placeholder”.
- The built-in JSON data viewer automatically switches to viewing data as-is (raw) if the JSON data being viewed is incorrect or corrupted.
Finally, if you are interested in learning more about this new version of the browser, you can find the details at the following link.
How to install or update the new version of Firefox on Linux?
As always, for those who already use Firefox, you 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.
For those who don't want to wait for that to happen, they can select Menu > Help > About Firefox after the official release 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 for updating, if you are a user of Ubuntu, Linux Mint or some other Ubuntu derivative, is to install or update to this new version using 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 packages and the browser installation is done by typing 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