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The Mozilla Firefox 103 web browser is now available for download ahead of its planned release on July 26th, 2022, a new stable release that brings many performance improvements and other enhancements.
“SHA-1 signatures in certificates, long since determined to no longer be secure enough, are now not supported,” said Mozilla.
Firefox 103 has been in beta since June 27th, 2022, and it introduces improved WebGL performance on Linux systems when using the NVIDIA binary drivers via DMA-Buf, improved performance on high-refresh rate monitors of 120Hz or higher, and stronger security due to the removal of the configuration option that allows SHA-1 signatures in certificates.
Among other noteworthy changes, Mozilla Firefox 103 now highlights required fields in PDF forms, preserves non-breaking spaces when copying text from a form control, and makes it easier to access the buttons in the Tabs toolbar with the Tab, Shift+Tab, and Arrow keys.
Also improved is the Picture-in-Picture (PiP) feature, which now supports subtitles and captions for the Dailymotion, Funimation, Hotstar, SonyLIV, and Tubi video streaming services.
There were rumors that Mozilla plans to add another new tracking protection feature in Firefox 103, called URL Query Parameter Stripping, but it looks like it’s disabled by default in the final release. This feature strips tracking parameters from web addresses to protect your privacy in ETP strict mode and Private Browsing Mode.
However, Firefox 103 brings increased protection from online tracking via Total Cookie Protection, which has been enabled by default last month for all users on all supported platforms, by isolating all third-party cookies into partitioned storage.
Of course, there are also various security fixes and bug fixes, like a fix for an issue that could significantly slow down Firefox’s startup by the processing of Web content local storage. “This had the greatest impact on users with platter hard drives and significant local storage,” reads the release notes.
As mentioned before, Mozilla has scheduled the rollout of Firefox 103 for July 26th, 2022, when macOS and Windows users will be able to update their installations via OTA (Over-the-Air) updates. But Linux users can download the binary packages for 64-bit or 32-bit systems right now from the download server.
Last updated 2 years ago
