Firefox 89 arrives with interface changes, calculator in the address bar and more

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A few days ago the Firefox 89 release was released and in this new version of the most important changes that stand out are the interface updates, Icon pictograms were updated, the style of various elements was unified and the color palette was redesigned.

Also, the tab bar layout was changed- The corners of the tab buttons are rounded and now do not merge with the panel along the bottom edge (floating button effect). Removed visual separation of inactive tabs, but the area occupied by the button is highlighted when the cursor hovers over the tab.

As well the menu was restructuredIn it, little-used and obsolete items have been removed from the main menu and context menus to emphasize the most important features. The remaining items are reordered based on the importance and relevance of the users.

As part of the fight against distracting visual clutter, icons next to menu items have been removed and only text labels left. The interface for customizing the panel and the web developer tools are in a separate "More tools" submenu. To revert the previous appearance in about: config, you can set the "browser.proton.enabled" parameter to "false".

Other changes that stand out is that the number of elements that distract the user's attention has been reduced. Unnecessary warnings and notifications have been removed.

As well we can find that a calculator is integrated in the address bar. The calculator is still disabled by default and requires changing the suggestion.calculator setting in about: config.

For the Linux version, the use of the WebRender composition engine has been allowed for all users Linux, including any desktop environment, all versions of Mesa and systems with NVIDIA drivers (Previously, webRender was only enabled for GNOME, KDE, and Xfce with Intel and AMD drivers.)

In private browsing mode, the browsing method Total Cookie Protection is enabled by default, which previously triggered only when strict spam blocking mode was selected.

The second version of the SmartBlock mechanism has been included, designed to fix problems on sites that result from blocking external scripts in private browsing mode or by activating the enhanced blocking of unwanted content. In particular, SmartBlock allows you to significantly increase the performance of some sites that are slowed down due to the inability to load script code for tracking.

Finally it is also highlighted that a third-party implementation is presented (not native to the system) of input form elements, such as radio buttons, buttons, drop-down lists and text input fields (input, textarea, button, select), with a more modern design. Using a separate implementation of form elements also had a positive impact on the performance of the page rendering.

How to install the new version of Firefox 89 on Linux?

Ubuntu users, Linux Mint or some other derivative of Ubuntu, They 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

Done this now they just have to install with:

sudo apt install firefox

For Arch Linux users and derivatives, just run in a terminal:

sudo pacman -S firefox

Now for those who are Fedora users or any other distribution derived from it:

sudo dnf install firefox

Finally if they are openSUSE usersThey can rely on community repositories, from which they can add Mozilla's to their system.

This can be done with a terminal and in it by typing:

su -
zypper ar -f http://download.opensuse.org/repositories/mozilla/openSUSE_Leap_15.1/ mozilla
zypper ref
zypper dup --from mozilla

For all other Linux distributions can download the binary packages from the following link.  


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  1.   Leo Amez said

    I like that now it is easier to identify the active tab, but not that compact mode is abandoned, I usually use the browser in full screen, so I do not notice the thickness of the bar, but when I have to use it in windowed mode the size bothers me a bit.