Mozilla Firefox 96.0 Release: Here’s What’s New
The release date of Firefox 96.0 is January 11, 2022. It is the first stable version of Firefox of 2022. The new version of Firefox includes some improvements and fixes, including security fixes.
All other Firefox channels are updated at about the same time. Firefox ESR moves to Firefox 91.5 ESR, Firefox Beta and Dev editions to version 97, and Firefox Nightly to version 98.
Check out our Firefox 95 release overview here. Mozilla released two smaller updates for Firefox 95, Firefox 95.0.1 and Firefox 95.0.2, which fixed problems in the browser.
Executive Summary
- Firefox 96 is a security update.
- Firefox changes the way cookies that come from the same domain but use different schemes, for example HTTPS and HTTP, are handled. The sites are considered different “with respect to the SameSite cookie policy”.
Download and update Firefox 96.0
Firefox 96.0 will be released to all systems on January 11, 2022, provided the auto-update feature has not been disabled.
Users can select Firefox Menu > Help > About Firefox to display the currently installed version and run a manual check for updates. Updates that are discovered during the check are automatically downloaded and installed.
Here are the links to the official download repositories.
Firefox 96.0 new features and improvements
Changes in cookie management
Firefox 96.0 applies the Same-Site=lax cookie policy by default now. It is one of the three values available for the same site policy and blocks the sending of cookies in third-party contexts. Firefox will use the lax value automatically for sites that don’t specify a same site directive.
Mozilla explains:
Cookies are not sent on normal cross-site sub-requests (for example, to load images or frames on a third-party site), but are sent when a user navigates to the originating site (for example, when they follow a link).
This is the default cookie value if SameSite has not been explicitly specified in recent browser versions (see the “SameSite: Default to Lax” feature in Browser Compatibility).
other changes
- The main thread load has been reduced “significantly” according to Mozilla.
- Improvements to noise suppression and automatic gain control, and “slight improvements to echo cancellation.”
Developer Changes
- The hwb() function has been implemented to use as the CSS color value.
- Firefox now provides support for the color scheme property
- The counter-reset property now supports the reversed() function to create reversed CSS counters, which are intended to number elements in descending order.
- navigator.canShare() is now supported on Android
- The Web Locks API is enabled by default.
- Added image encoder support for the WebP image format.
business changes
Mozilla fixes a bug that affected downloading files to mapped network drives. Additionally, Mozilla Firefox now hides the Windows SSO option in preferences if the feature is not supported by the installed version of Windows.
Engineers fixed three policy issues and added two policies that modify the new default cookie policy Same-Site=lax.
- AutoLaunchProtocolsFromOrigins errors were not displaying correctly.
- search engines | Add updates to search engines when attributes are changed.
- SuggestURLTemplate in search engines | Add did not work correctly.
- New LegacySameSiteCookieBehaviorEnabled policy to set the global default handling for legacy behavior.
- New LegacySameSiteCookieBehaviorEnabledForDomainList policy that allows administrators to specify a list of domains for which cookies should be handled using legacy behavior.
Error correction
- Clicking command links in Gmail opens these links in a new tab.
- Fixes a video issue that saw SSRC drop.
- Fixes a degraded WebRTC screen sharing resolution.
- Fix video quality degradation issues on “certain sites”.
- Split video has been disabled on Mac OS in full screen to “avoid some corruption issues, brightness changes, missing subtitles, and high CPU usage.”
Known issues
None on the list.
Security updates/fixes
Security updates are revealed after the official release of the web browser. You find the information published here after the release.
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Firefox 97, Firefox Beta and Dev 98, Firefox Nightly 99, and Firefox ESR 91.6 will be released on February 8, 2022.
Recently reviewed Firefox extensions
None
Recent Firefox News and Tips
Additional information/sources
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