Available now for GNU/Linux, macOS, and Microsoft Windows

Mar 29, 2017 08:18 GMT  ·  By

Mozilla has just released a new version of its Firefox browser, this time coming with some pretty big changes, including two new themes.

First and foremost, it’s worth noting that Firefox 53 no longer supports old operating systems like Windows XP, Windows Vista, Mac OS X 32-bit, and Linux running on Pentium 4 or AMD Opteron processors or older.

At the same time, Mozilla is pushing Windows XP and Windows Vista to the extended support branch on Firefox 52, meaning that users who continue running this version will still get security updates for another year, but without receiving any new features and improvements.

What’s new in Firefox 53?

One of the most significant improvements in Firefox 53 is the addition of a new GPU process manager called Quantum Compositor that is aimed at Windows systems and which helps reduce the number of crashes by up to 22 percent in the case of Direct3D and 17 percent for drivers.

Mozilla says that only users running Firefox 53 on Windows 7 SP1 or newer with multi-process enabled get to try this feature, and it only works for select graphics cards.

Firefox 53 is the first release that drops the Aurora development channel, so with the next version, Nightly users are upgraded directly to the beta channel should they move to a more stable branch.

The new browser version also introduces two new themes, Compact Dark and Compact Light, which you can enable in the Add-ons Manager under the Appearance section, as well as a new permission dialog displayed whenever websites request access to certain features.

There are several other changes, all of them being tested with help from beta testers prior to today’s release, and these include refinements to inactive tabs, design improvements for audio and video controls, reader more enhancements, and lightweight themes for private browsing mode.

As it happens with every new release, you can download Mozilla Firefox 52.0.2 for GNU/LinuxmacOS, and Microsoft Windows from Softpedia, but keep in mind that for Windows, only Windows 7 or newer is supported with this release.