The Firefox 146 web browser has been released, and updates have been generated for previous branches with a long support period — 140.6.0 and 115.31.0. The Firefox 147 branch has been moved to the beta testing stage, and its release is scheduled for January 14.
Key new features in Firefox 146 (1, 2, 3):
- A "Split View" mode has been added for viewing two tabs side by side in a single window. This mode is disabled by default and can be enabled via the "browser.tabs.splitView.enabled" setting in the about:config page. After this setting is enabled, an "Add Split View" button will appear in the context menu displayed when right-clicking on tabs. Clicking this button on an individual tab will split the window's contents into two parts, with a new tab page displayed on the right. Selecting this option for a group of two tabs will immediately open the specified tabs side by side. In "Split View" mode, the right and left viewing areas can be resized by dragging the separator bar. The active tab is highlighted with a red border when viewed side by side.
- In Linux environments using the Wayland protocol, support for fractional scaling has been implemented to improve rendering efficiency on high-density displays.
- The built-in Skia graphics library, used for 2D rendering using the GPU, has been updated. This update improves rendering performance and compatibility.
- All users now have access to the Firefox Labs settings section, where they can activate experimental features currently in testing. Previously, this section was only available in installations where users had opted in to participate in experiments or enabled telemetry.
- When entering a search query in the address bar, you can now display search results in a drop-down suggestion box. This feature is not yet enabled by default for everyone and will be gradually activated for a larger percentage of users.
- The number of countries for which the weather forecast widget displayed on the new tab page is enabled has been significantly increased. The location for displaying the forecast can be selected automatically or manually specified. Of the former Soviet Union countries, Estonia, Lithuania, and Latvia are available. Other countries can enable the widget via the about:config setting "browser.newtabpage.activity-stream.discoverystream.region-weather-config" on the about:config page.
- The configurator's dialog for redefining colors on viewed sites (Contrast Control/Manage Colors) has been redesigned, now clearly grouping the colors to be changed and providing explanatory labels.
- Automatic backup support for saved passwords, bookmarks, internal databases, and other browser data has been added. Backups are currently only supported on the Windows platform, but will be available for other OS builds in the future. Backups are created daily and can be password-encrypted. These backups can then be used to restore the browser state after installing a fresh Firefox installation on another device.
- Direct2D API support has been discontinued on the Windows platform.
- macOS builds now launch a separate GPU interaction process by default, handling WebGPU, WebGL, and WebRender operations. If the GPU code crashes, the GPU process is now restarted instead of crashing the browser.
- WebRTC implements the ability to encrypt traffic using the ML-KEM cryptographic algorithm, which is resistant to brute-force attacks on a quantum computer, with the key being transmitted during the connection negotiation process using the DTLS 1.3 protocol.
- The WebCrypto API now supports compression of elliptic curve point information, with subsequent mathematical reconstruction of the full point value. Compression allows for nearly halving the size of public keys, saving bandwidth and disk space.
- The @scope rule has been added to CSS, allowing you to restrict styles to a specified DOM subtree without having to write specific selectors. @scope (.article-body) { img { border: 5px solid black; background-color: goldenrod; } }
- Added support for the CSS function contrast-color(), which returns the opposite of a specified color (for white, it returns black, and for black, it returns white). This function can be used to match a background color to a specific text color, and vice versa.
- Added the text-decoration-inset CSS property for setting the start and end points of text decoration lines (e.g. underlines, strikethroughs, syntax error lines).
- Added support for the deprecated "-webkit-fill-available" keyword, which is used in the CSS properties "width" and "height" and is analogous to the "stretch" keyword, which is not yet enabled by default and allows elements to stretch until they completely fill the available space of the block.
- In the Web Developer Tools inspection interface, unused CSS properties are hidden by default in the Rule sidebar, reducing clutter and speeding up panel rendering. To unhide these hidden properties, use the "Show..." button at the bottom.
- The Android version has a simplified file upload interface: if the site doesn't specify the file type, the browser now prompts you to select the file, take a photo, or record audio.
In addition to new features and bug fixes, Firefox 146 fixes 17 vulnerabilities. 12 of the vulnerabilities are caused by memory issues, such as buffer overflows and access to previously released memory areas. These issues could potentially lead to malicious code being executed when opening specially designed pages.
Firefox Beta 147 adds the ability to use the "~/.config/mozilla" directory to store profiles, add-ons, settings, and internal databases in accordance with the Freedesktop.org XDG Base Directory specification. Video playback has been optimized using hardware acceleration on AMD GPUs. The Safe Browsing protocol implementation has been updated to version 5. An option has been added to automatically resume video playback in picture-in-picture mode when switching tabs. Support for RFC 9842 (Compression Dictionary Transport) has been added. The Navigation API has been implemented.
Source: opennet.ru
