Mozilla Firefox 95.0 release: here is what is new

[harlan4096]

Firefox 95.0's release date is December 7, 2021. It is the last major stable release of Firefox in 2021. Firefox 95 includes several new features and improvements, but also bug fixes and security patches.The other Firefox channels, Firefox Beta, Dev and Nightly, Firefox ESR and Firefox for Android, are also updated around the same time of a new stable release.

Firefox Beta and Developer editions are moved to version 96, Firefox Nightly to version 97, and Firefox ESR to version 91.4.
You can check out the release overview for Firefox 94.0 here.

Executive Summary

• Firefox is available on the Microsoft Store officially now.
  
• The new release reduces CPU usage and power usage on Mac OS X in some use cases.
  
• Site Isolation is enabled for all users.
  

Firefox 95.0 download and update

Firefox 95.0 is downloaded and installed automatically on most devices that run the browser. Desktop users may run manual checks for updates to get the version as early as possible, Android users will have to wait until Google Play pushes the release to their mobile devices.

On desktop systems, select Firefox Menu > Help > About Firefox to display the version of the browser that is installed currently, and to run a manual check for updates.

• Firefox Stable download
  
• Firefox Beta download
  
• Nightly download
  
• Firefox ESR download
  
• Firefox for Android on Google Play
  

Firefox 95.0 new features and improvements

RLBox sandboxing technology for all platforms

RLBox is a new sandboxing feature that Mozilla integrated in Firefox 95. It is designed to "isolate subcomponents to make the browser more secure". Mozilla developed the technology in collaboration with researchers at the University of California San Diego and the University of Texas.

RLBox isolates the following five modules in Firefox Stable in this initial version: Graphite, Hunspell, Ogg, Expat and Woff2. Mozilla notes that the technology allows Firefox to treat the modules as untrusted code, which, provided that the implementation is correct, could protect against 0-day vulnerabilities in the browser.

Check out the article about RLBox on the Mozilla Hacks website for additional details.

Site Isolation in Firefox Stable

Originally scheduled for Firefox 94, Site Isolation should now be available to all users of Firefox Stable. Here is the info that I wrote for the Firefox 94 release article:

Mozilla started to test Firefox's Site Isolation feature in Firefox 70, and rolled it out in Firefox Nightly in September 2020. Called Project Fission internally, site isolation aims to improve privacy and security significantly by isolation webpages and third-party iframes.

Site Isolation builds upon a new security architecture that extends current protection mechanisms by separating (web) content and loading each site in its own operating system process.

This new security architecture allows Firefox to completely separate code originating from different sites and, in turn, defend against malicious sites trying to access sensitive information from other sites you are visiting.

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