Firefox 93.0 Release: Here’s What’s New and What’s Changed
Firefox 93.0 will be released later today, if you are reading this on October 5, 2021. The new stable version of Mozilla’s Firefox web browser is a feature update that also includes security and stability fixes.
All other Firefox channels update at roughly the same time. Firefox Developer and Beta versions have been updated to version 94, Firefox Nightly to version 95 and Firefox for Android will also be updated to version 93.
Today the latest version of Firefox 78.x ESR is released. Mozilla released Firefox 91.0 ESR in August and it will become the only supported ESR channel when Firefox 94.0 is released next month.
You can check the Firefox 92.0 version information, in case you have missed it or want to read it again.
Executive Summary
- Firefox 78.15 ESR is the latest version of the branch and the only supported version of Firefox that supports Adobe Flash and Mac OS X versions 10.11 and earlier.
- Firefox supports the AVIF image format by default
- WebRender should be enabled on all systems now.
- Firefox 92.0 includes security updates.
Download and update Firefox 93.0
Firefox installations will update automatically on most systems, as Firefox automatically checks for updates at intervals to download new updates automatically.
To check the installed version, go to Menu> Help> About Firefox. Note that this will also run a manual check for updates and install new versions found during the scan.
Manual downloads are also available. The following pages list direct downloads for supported Firefox channels.
New features and improvements
AVIF format support is enabled by default
Mozilla planned to enable AVIF support in Firefox 92, but postponed the release. AVIF support is enabled by default in Firefox 93. It is an open format that offers “excellent compression” and has no patent restrictions.
The Firefox implementation supports still images, “with color space support for full and limited range colors, and image transforms for mirroring and rotation,” but not animated images.
Tip– Open this test site in your browser to see if it supports AVIF.
Download tabs in Windows when memory is critically low
Firefox includes a new tab download feature in Windows. It is an automated feature that will download tabs if “system memory is critically low” available.
Tabs are downloaded based on last access time, memory usage, and other attributes.
Mozilla hopes the feature will reduce the number of memory-related crashes that Firefox users experience.
See our full coverage of Firefox’s new tab download feature here.
Unsafe downloads are blocked by default
Firefox blocks unsafe downloads by default now (unsafe downloads on secure web pages).
The dom.block_download_insecure preference can be toggled to allow unsafe downloads again, by setting it to False.
- Load about: config into Firefox’s address bar.
- Confirm that you will be careful if the warning message is displayed.
- Busque dom.block_download_insecure.
- Set the preference to FALSE.
See our full coverage of Firefox’s new unsafe download blocking feature here.
advertising
