A new version of Mozilla Firefox is out and available for download.
Keeping tradition with other recent releases, Firefox 48 is another modest update. It sees the open-source browser ship with a small set of improvements and enhancements, but few ‘shiny new bells and whistles.’
You’ll find improved protection against harmful downloads, add-ons now need to be both verified and signed by Mozilla in order to load, and improvements and tweaks to WebRTC will please those of you who like to natter over Firefox Hello.
Security Improvements
The Security tab of Firefox’s Preferences gains two new options that are checked by default: “Block dangerous downloads” and “Warn me about unwanted and uncommon software”.
Although malicious downloads are less of an issue on Linux than on, say, oh I don’t know…let me pick an OS at random, let’s plump for Microsoft Windows, you should still keep vigilant while browsing around. These new options shoulder some of that burden for you.
A Touch of Rust
With Firefox 48 Mozilla is shipping its first production Rust code, a media parser. Mozilla’s Dave Herman explains this milestone in more detail in a dedicated blog post, noting:
“This makes a memory-safe programming language like Rust a compelling addition to Mozilla’s tool-chest for protecting against potentially malicious media content on the Web. For this reason, Ralph Giles and Matthew Gregan built Mozilla’s first Rust media parser.”
Other Changes
Elsewhere, when searching for a web page in the Awesome bar that is already stashed in your bookmarks or open in an active tab, Firefox will display some “super smart icons” to bring it to your attention.
Lastly on the ‘notable features’ front, Linux users benefit from “better Canvas performance with speedy Skia support”.
Download Firefox 48
Mozilla Firefox 48 is available for Windows, Mac OS X (10.8 or later) and Linux, including Ubuntu.
If you’re running the latter (and as you’re reading a blog called OMG! Ubuntu! I’m going to guess that you are) be aware that you do not have to do anything esoteric to get the latest Firefox update as it will be be made available to you through the Software Updater.
If you really can’t wait you can, as always, download it from the official Mozilla Firefox website, linked to below.