The release of the Firefox 100 web browser has taken place. Additionally, a long-term support branch update — 91.9.0 has been formed. The Firefox 101 branch will soon enter beta testing, with its release scheduled for May 31.
Key innovations in Firefox 100:
- The ability to use multiple dictionaries for different languages when checking spelling has been implemented. In the context menu, several languages can now be activated simultaneously.
- Floating scrollbars are enabled by default in Linux and Windows, where a full scrollbar appears only when the mouse cursor is over it; otherwise, a thin indicator line shows the current scroll position on the page. If the cursor remains still, the indicator disappears after a while. To disable hidden scrollbars, the option is available under 'System Settings > Accessibility > Visual Effects > Always show scrollbars'.
- In the picture-in-picture mode, subtitles are now displayed when watching videos on YouTube, Prime Video, and Netflix, as well as on websites using the WebVTT (Web Video Text Track) format, such as Coursera.org.
- When launched for the first time after installation, a check is performed to see if the language of the Firefox build matches the operating system settings. If there are discrepancies, the user is prompted to choose which language to use in Firefox.
- On the macOS platform, support for high dynamic range video is added on systems with screens that support HDR (High Dynamic Range).
- On the Windows platform, hardware acceleration for AV1 video decoding is enabled by default on computers with Intel Gen 11+ and AMD RDNA 2 GPUs (except Navi 24 and GeForce 30) if the AV1 Video Extension is installed in the system. The overlay output mode (Video overlay) is also enabled by default for Intel GPUs in Windows, allowing for reduced energy consumption during video playback.
- Users from the United Kingdom are provided with support for automatic filling and remembering of credit card numbers in web forms.
- A more balanced distribution of resources during rendering and event processing has been ensured, which has resolved issues with delayed response times for the volume slider in Twitch.
- For subresources and iframes loaded from other sites, the use of the HTTP Referrer-Policy header policies "no-referrer-when-downgrade", "origin-when-cross-origin", and "unsafe-url" is ignored, allowing the full URL to be passed to third-party sites in the "Referer" header, bypassing default settings. It is worth noting that in Firefox 87, the policy "strict-origin-when-cross-origin" was activated by default to block potential leaks of confidential data, which means removing paths and parameters from the "Referer" when sending a request to other hosts over HTTPS, passing an empty "Referer" when transitioning from HTTPS to HTTP, and passing the full "Referer" for internal transitions within the same site.
- A new focus indicator for links has been proposed (for example, displayed when navigating through links using the tab key) — instead of a dashed line, links are now bordered by a solid blue line, similar to how active fields in web forms are marked. It has been noted that the solid line simplifies navigation for people with visual impairments.
- Firefox has been made available as the default PDF viewer.
- The WritableStreams API has been added, providing an additional level of abstraction for organizing streaming data writes into a channel with built-in flow control capabilities. The pipeTo() method has also been added to create unnamed channels (pipes) between ReadableStreams and WritableStreams. Interfaces WritableStreamDefaultWriter and WritableStreamDefaultController have also been introduced.
- WebAssembly has implemented support for exceptions (WASM Exceptions), allowing the addition of exception handlers for C++ and applying stack unwinding semantics without the need for additional JavaScript handlers.
- The performance of elements with "display: grid" at high nesting levels has been enhanced.
- CSS now supports media queries ‘dynamic-range’ and ‘video-dynamic-range’ to identify the presence of a screen that supports HDR (High Dynamic Range).
- Support for the non-standard HTTP header Large-Allocation has been discontinued.
In addition to new features and bug fixes in Firefox 100, a series of vulnerabilities have been addressed. Currently, detailed information on the patched security issues is not available, but a list of vulnerabilities is expected to be published within a few hours.
Source: opennet.ru
