Mozilla Released the Latest ESR “Firefox 78”
June 30, Mozilla released the latest version of the open-source web browser “Firefox 78.0”. It is the latest ESR for enterprises with enhancements in tracking protection and WebRTC. The latest Firefox 78 is the successor of version 77, released in early June.
The Protections Dashboard includes consolidated reports about tracking protection, data breaches, and password management. It brings new features like tracking the number of breaches that have been resolved from the dashboard and checking if there are any saved passwords that may have been exposed in a data breach. The dashboard can be viewed by typing about:protections into the address bar or choosing Protections Dashboard from the main menu.
A Refresh button is added to the Uninstaller to remind users that, instead of reinstalling, they can simply refresh to fix problems.
The 2D rendering engine “WebRender”, which was enabled in version 67, is now available to Windows version that runs on Intel GPUs.
Now screen saver will no longer interrupt WebRTC, which lets users communicate in realtime in audio or video conferencing. Pocket recommendations are also improved.
In regards to security features, this release disables all DHE-based TLS cipher suites by default. TLS 1.0 and 1.1 are also disabled.
As to features for developers, this release introduces the new RegExp engine. It also brings better DevTools and improved debugger.
Firefox 78 is the last major release with support for macOS 10.9/10.10/10.11. The minimal system requirements on Linux have been changed to GNU libc 2.17, libstdc++ 4.8.1, and GTK+ 3.14.
Firefox78 is also the latest Extended Support Release (ESR). ESR is an enterprise edition with long-term support for security fixes, and Firefox78ESR is the successor of Firefox68ESR, released in August 2019. It will be supported until July 2021.
Some of the new features included in the ESR are kiosk mode and client certificates, and Service Worker and Push APIs have been enabled.
On the same day, Mozilla also released version 68.10.0 for Android. This release focuses on security fixes.