Firefox launched way back on November 9, 2004, which suggests we’re simply over one week out from the browser’s twentieth anniversary. Who knew {that a} non secular successor to Netscape Navigator would final this lengthy?
With Firefox 132 being launched yesterday, it’s shut sufficient to depend as a celebration — and the replace fittingly brings some excellent news with it, together with improved privateness with blocked third-party cookies, plus another cool options price updating for.
Mozilla plans to launch Firefox 133 on November 26, 2024.
What’s new in Firefox 132?
Firefox 132 is now prepared for 4K video playback from main streaming companies, however this function is presently in a rollout section. By assist for Microsoft PlayReady, Firefox will be capable to play encrypted media at a baseline of 1080p with 4K assist on prime.
Initially solely on chosen web sites, this function ought to unfold to extra websites over time — and one other huge good thing about it’s that you just’ll expertise much less battery drain and higher efficiency whereas streaming video.
This replace additionally sees enhancements to information safety. If you happen to’ve enabled “strict mode” in Firefox’s Settings > Privateness & safety > Improved safety in opposition to exercise monitoring, then Firefox 132 will now block all third-party cookies. The utmost lifetime of cookies is now restricted to 400 days. If you happen to use the “Copy hyperlink with out web site monitoring” function, Firefox can now filter out extra monitoring parameters, too.
If you happen to use Firefox on a couple of system, now you can synchronize bookmarks, open tabs, and passwords between gadgets. If the brand new sidebar for synchronized tabs is activated, you may shut tabs on different gadgets through the context menu. Nevertheless, if required, you should first activate this new sidebar through about:config. There, change the flag labeled sidebar.revamp to true by double-clicking on it.
A quick historical past of Mozilla Firefox
Marc Andreessen, one of many builders of the NCSA Mosaic browser, based Netscape in 1994. With Netscape Navigator, the corporate equipped the world’s most generally used browser within the mid-Nineties (market share over 80 %). However after Microsoft ended the so-called browser battle with widespread adoption of Web Explorer, AOL took over the shedding browser firm.
In 1998, Netscape printed the supply code of its browser and allowed the newly based Mozilla Basis to handle additional improvement. Mozilla ultimately launched Firefox 1.0 on November 9, 2004, and we’re about to hit that 20-year mark in about 10 days as of this writing.
Safety flaws mounted in Firefox 132
Mozilla’s safety report for Firefox 132 reveals 11 vulnerabilities have been mounted within the replace, with two of them labeled as “excessive” danger.
A kind of high-risk flaws is CVE-2024-10459, a use-after-free vulnerability within the format part when accessibility is enabled. With it, an attacker can provoke a crash and probably execute injected code. The opposite high-risk flaw is CVE-2024-10458, which permits authorizations to be transferred from a safe web site to an insecure web site.
Different internally found vulnerabilities can doubtlessly be exploited to execute arbitrary code, however they’re solely categorized as average danger.
Firefox ESR, Tor Browser, and Thunderbird
Along with releasing Firefox 132, Mozilla has additionally up to date its long-term variations, with 10 safety vulnerabilities patched in Firefox ESR 128.4.0 and three patched in Firefox ESR 115.17.0. (Firefox ESR 115 will proceed to be supported till March 2025.)
The up to date Tor Browser 14.0.1 is predicated on Firefox ESR 128.4.0, however Tor’s builders state that they’ve additionally ported the safety enhancements from Firefox 132. An replace for Tor Browser 13.5 to 13.5.9 can also be obtainable when you’re on Home windows 7 or 8.1 or macOS 10.13 or 10.14.
Thunderbird 128.4.0esr fixes 10 vulnerabilities and some bugs. In distinction to Firefox, Thunderbird now not helps older working system variations, as model 115.16.2 is the top of the road for Thunderbird 115. Thunderbird 132 (with out “esr”) is barely obtainable for testing functions.
Additional studying: Thunderbird will get new launch channel for updates
This text initially appeared on our sister publication PC-WELT and was translated and localized from German.
