14 DAY TRIAL // The development of the Epiphany 3.24 web browser continues for the upcoming GNOME 3.24 desktop environment, due for release on March 22, 2017, and a new preview release is now available for public testing.
Epiphany 3.23.5 was released a few days ago despite the fact that there won't be any GNOME 3.23.5 milestone, as GNOME developers are currently preparing to unleash the first Beta version of the GNOME 3.24 desktop.
However, Epiphany 3.23.5 appears to be a major milestone adding a large number of new features and improvements. For example, it implements a new, more powerful "Clear Personal Data" dialog for better privacy, as well as a new option that lets users subscribe to EasyPrivacy filters.
It also enables the ability to configure the Adblock filters and remembers the size of fallback windows in GSettings, improves anonymity by no longer writing any data to disk when using the Incognito mode, and renames the "Privacy" preferences tab to "Stored Data."
Severe password extraction sweep attack on password manager now patched
Epiphany 3.23.5 brings many other small improvements that will make a difference for GNOME's default web browser app. Among these, we can mention a new keyboard shortcut (Ctrl+Shift+X) for exporting bookmarks, better-looking bookmarks popover, and the ability to save the current session even if there are tabs with blank URLs.
The warning text that appears when closing a tab with a modified form in it has been improved as well, the "Do Not Track" option was moved to the "General" tab in Settings, and Epiphany now supports multiple Adblock filters running simultaneously. It also looks like unused Adblock filters are now automatically deleted when Adblock is active.
Of course, numerous critical bugs and the most annoying issues have been patched too, including a serious password extraction sweep attack on the built-in password manager, the keyboard shortcut (F6) used for focusing the address bar, and various problems with the bookmarks popover.
Among other improvements, we can mention that Epiphany 3.24 will no longer use session in Incognito mode, nor in a Web App, the initial notification permissions are now correctly set, there's better support for the Twitter website, and full security origins are now displayed instead of just hostnames.
For your reading pleasure, if you'd like to see everything that was changed in the Epiphany 3.23.5 development release, we've attached the full changelog below. You can also download the source tarball if you want to give it a try on your GNU/Linux operating system. Epiphany 3.22.6 stable release is also out, and you should update accordingly.