The release of the web browser Firefox 90 has occurred. Additionally, an update for the long-term support branch 78.12.0 has been prepared. The Firefox 91 branch will soon enter beta testing, with a release scheduled for August 10. <\/p>\n
Key innovations: <\/p>\n
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In the 'Privacy and Security' settings section, additional settings have been added for the 'HTTPS Only' mode, which, when enabled, automatically redirects all non-encrypted requests to their secure page versions (replacing 'http:\/\/' with 'https:\/\/'). An interface has been proposed to maintain an exceptions list, allowing certain sites to continue using 'http:\/\/' without mandatory replacement to 'https:\/\/'.
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The implementation of the SmartBlock mechanism, designed to resolve issues on websites arising from the blocking of external scripts in private browsing mode or when enhanced tracking protection (strict) is activated, has been improved. SmartBlock automatically replaces tracking scripts with placeholders that ensure proper site loading. Placeholders are prepared for some popular user tracking scripts listed in Disconnect. The new version includes adaptive blocking of Facebook widgets placed on third-party sites\u2014by default, the scripts are blocked, but the blocking is disabled if the user is logged into Facebook.\n
The built-in implementation of the FTP protocol has been removed. When attempting to open links with the 'ftp:\/\/' protocol identifier, the browser will now try to invoke an external application, similar to how 'irc:\/\/' and 'tg:\/\/' handlers are called. The reason for discontinuing FTP support is its insecurity against modification and interception of transit traffic during MITM attacks. According to Firefox developers, there are no reasons to use FTP instead of HTTPS for resource downloads in modern conditions. Additionally, the FTP support code in Firefox is very old, creates maintenance problems, and has a history of many vulnerabilities discovered in the past.\n
When saving a webpage in PDF format (using the 'Print to PDF' option), the document ensures that functional hyperlinks are preserved.\n
The 'Open Image in New Tab' button in the context menu has been redesigned to open the image in the background tab (previously, clicking would immediately switch to the new tab with the image, but now the old tab remains active).\n
Work has been done to improve the performance of software rendering in the WebRender compositing system, which uses shaders to perform composite rendering of page elements. For most systems with older graphics cards or problematic graphics drivers, software rendering mode is enabled in the WebRender compositing system (gfx.webrender.software=true in about:config).\n
Updates can now be applied in the background for Windows platform builds, even when Firefox is not running.\n
Client certificates stored in hardware tokens or operating system certificate stores can now be used for authentication.\n
![\"Firefox](\"\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/07\/cc228820900190c25af811fb18b86b14.png\")
<\/center>\n![\"Firefox](\"\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/07\/2c0aa6d2ba5dd98568b2e4d03bc1a7f5.png\")
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