The release of the Firefox 159 web browser has occurred, and updates for previous long-term support branches 153.6.0 and 115.44.0 have been formed. As part of the new bi-weekly release cycle, the Firefox 160 branch has entered beta testing, with its release scheduled for November 10.
Key new features in Firefox 159 (1, 2, 3):
- A button for accessing saved passwords has been added to the sidebar by default.
- The "Smart Window" mode, which provides a separate space for interacting with AI, now includes the ability to track changes on webpages. For example, this new feature allows users to monitor price drops on products in online stores. To enable tracking, utilize the command "/watch" in the chat with the built-in AI assistant in the browser, and to manage it, use the Tasks button on the panel or visit the page about:smartwindowtasks. When a change is detected, Firefox will display a notification.
- The AI page content summarization feature has been revamped to send not the page text to the AI provider, but a link to the page, resolving issues with incomplete page analysis.
- New keyboard shortcuts have been added: Ctrl+Shift+A for searching among open tabs and Ctrl+Shift+F for navigating to the management of add-ons or themes. Keyboard combinations can be modified on the page about:keyboard.
- In macOS builds, the platform's default interface for sharing information through other applications, such as AirDrop and Messages, has been utilized. It's now possible to send multiple selected tabs at once.
- In the web developer tools, variable redefinitions previously declared with let, const, and class are now allowed in the web console.
- Support for scroll-driven animations has been added, enabling the creation of indicators for visual representation of position on the page or effects that change content as it comes into view during scrolling. Two modes are available: "ScrollTimeline" for tying to scroll position along a coordinate axis, and "ViewTimeline" for linking to the relative offset of individual content elements in the scrolling area. New CSS properties include animation-timeline, scroll-timeline, view-timeline, and animation-range.
- Support for user-defined element registries has been implemented to separate the visibility scope of custom HTML elements, which may be necessary when using multiple different custom HTML elements with the same name on one page. When multiple libraries defining an element with the same name are used on a page, the JavaScript constructor CustomElementRegistry() allows elements from each library to be bound to specific parts of the DOM hierarchy that do not overlap with the global registry window.customElements. For instance, if two libraries define different elements with the same name , the element from the first library can be used in one part of the page, while the second can be used in another.
- Support for the EXT_clip_control and EXT_texture_mirror_clamp_to_edge extensions has been added in the WebGL API, and the EXT_texture_norm16 extension has been added in WebGL 2.
- In the Sanitizer API, HTML code has been cleaned at the parsing stage, before elements are added to the DOM tree, which resolved the issue with the constructors of user-defined elements being removed during this cleaning process.
- In the Android version, the frequency of tab reloads on Xiaomi and Redmi devices has been significantly reduced. The issue with video playback on sites like The New York Times has been resolved.
- In Firefox Enterprise, administrators are now able to request a re-login using a corporate account before restoring a session after a process crash. Data SBOM (Software Bill of Materials) generation has been provided for Firefox Enterprise builds. By default, the use of AI for form autofill has been disabled.
In addition to new features and bug fixes, Firefox 159 has addressed 167 vulnerabilities, 108 of which have been classified as high risk. Most of these vulnerabilities are due to memory management issues, such as buffer overflows and access to freed memory areas. Potentially, these issues can lead to the execution of malicious code when specially crafted pages are opened.
Source: opennet.ru
