Firefox 81.0.1 and Firefox 78.3.1 ESR are now available

[harlan4096]

Mozilla released updates for the two stable builds of the organization's Firefox web browser on October 1, 2020. The new versions of the web browser are already available via the web browser's built-in updating system and as a direct download from Mozilla's main website.

Firefox installations should get updated automatically; users who don't want to wait can select Menu > Help > About Firefox to run a manual check for updates. The update has a size of about 5 Megabytes.

Firefox 81.0.1 is a bug fix release that addresses various issues related to printing, stability and memory usage. It does not include security updates.

Mozilla lists three printing related issues in the release notes. One issue affects Outlook Web Access calendar printing, another caused the number of print pages to be calculated incorrectly.

• window.close not working after window.print if both are called before or during the load event. (link)
  
• Unable to print from Outlook Web Access calendar after updating to Firefox 81. (link)
  
• ff calculates print number of pages wrong. (link)
  

The new version of Firefox fixes a memory issue caused by add-ons such as Disconnect. A bug was filed two months ago in which the issue was described in the then-newest version of Firefox, Firefox 78. Memory usage increased because of the bug and unless Firefox was restarted regularly, was causing responsiveness issues on affected systems.

The update introduces other stability improvements, of which Mozilla lists three in the release notes. All three address crashes in the browser, e.g. on Google Maps.

• Crash in [@ mozilla::widget::WindowHook::AddMonitor] (link)
  
• Crash in [@ mozilla::dom::`anonymous namespace'::WebProgressListener::OnStateChange] (link)
  
• Crash in [@ abort | glrAppleSyncState] (WebGL crashes on 10.12/10.13 on Intel HD 3000, affects Google Maps) (link)
  

Four additional fixes are listed in the release notes. These address issues that affect the browser's Picture-in-Picture mode, Blackboard course listings, GPO policies, and Flash content on Mac systems.

• Fixed missing content on Blackboard course listings (bug 1665447)
  
• Resolved incorrect scaling of Flash content on HiDPI macOS systems (bug 1667267)
  
• Fixed legacy preferences not being properly applied when set via GPO (bug 1666836)
  
• Fixed Picture-in-Picture controls being visible on audio-only page elements (bug 1666775)
  

The next major Firefox release is scheduled for a October 20, 2020 release.
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