Mozilla Firefox 98.0: here’s what’s new
Mozilla released Firefox 98.0 Stable and Firefox 91.7.0 ESR on March 8, 2022. Firefox 98 gets the new download experience, among other changes.
All Firefox channels are updated at the same time. Firefox Beta and Developer have been moved to version 99.0, Firefox Nightly has been updated to version 100.0, and Firefox for Android has also been moved to version 98.0.
Executive Summary
- Firefox 98.0 and Firefox 91.7 ESR fix security issues.
- The new download behavior is enabled in the release. Note: “Always ask” download actions will be reset.
- Some Firefox users may have their selected default search engine removed from the browser.
Download and update Firefox 98.0
The Firefox 98.0 release date is March 8, 2022. Mozilla releases the update to all systems on that day. Firefox’s built-in update system should pick up the new version automatically once it’s released (which may be some time after this release guide is published).
Firefox users can check the current version and run a manual update check on all desktop systems by selecting Menu > Help > About Firefox. Updates found during verification will be downloaded and installed on the local system.
Here are the links to the official download repositories.
Firefox 98.0 new features and improvements
New download stream
The main new feature in Firefox 98 is the new browser download flow. The main difference between the old and new download behavior is that Firefox will no longer prompt users when downloads start. Firefox will start the download immediately, similar to how Chromium-based browsers handle it. You can refer to our guide on restoring download prompts in Firefox.
These are the main changes:
- The download panel is automatically displayed in Firefox 98 by default.
- Downloads can be opened while they are still downloading. They start immediately after the download is complete.
- File downloads are no longer placed in the system temp folder.
- The download menu displays the following options: always open similar files, show in folder, go to download page, copy download link, delete, remove from history, and clear preview pane.
Some Firefox users may prefer to display download prompts, and Firefox offers two options for that. The first enables requests for specific file types.
- Load about:preferences into the Firefox address bar.
- Scroll down to the app pool.
- Use the filter at the top to find a file type.
- Double click on your action field to change the action to “always ask”.
Firefox will display a warning each time a file of the selected file type is downloaded.
The second option is found on the same page. Locate the Downloads section on the page and change the Downloads option from “save files to” to “always ask you where to save files.”
other changes
- Firefox may remove default search engines from some user systems; this is only the case if Mozilla has not received formal permission from the search engine operators to include their search engine in Firefox.
Developer Changes
- The HTML element
- navigator.registerProtocolHandler() supports the registration of protocol handlers for FTP, SFTP, and FTPS.
- Se admite HTMLElement.outerText.
- The WebVR API is disabled by default as it is deprecated.
- Extensions that use webReqest no longer start early during Firefox startup unless they use call blocking.
- userScripts.register supports cookieStoreId. Extensions can use it to register container-specific user scripts.
business changes
- PKG for macOS reported that it was not compatible with M1. This was fixed in Firefox 98 and will soon be fixed in Firefox ESR as well.
- Some Outlook Web Access configuration fields were not working correctly. This is fixed in Firefox 98, ESR coming soon.
- PDFjs policy can now be used to disable PDF permissions.
- The WebsiteFilter policy was not correctly blocking web pages that were displayed after a 301 or 302 redirect was performed.
- The UserMessaging policy now supports removing “more from Mozilla” in preferences.
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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Mozilla Firefox 99 and Mozilla Firefox 91.8.0 ESR will be released on April 5, 2022. It is the last stable version of Firefox before reaching version 100.
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Additional information/sources
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