14 DAY TRIAL // Mozilla has released a new update for Firefox, but this time the focus has been entirely on fixing bugs under the hood, as it’s the first minor revision aimed at version 86.
Firefox 86.0.1 thus comes with improvements for Linux, Apple Silicon, and other general fixes, so users who previously experienced issues with the browser are recommended to install this new release as soon as possible.
First and foremost, let’s see what the Apple Silicon fix all about. Mozilla explains that some users who installed Firefox on a device powered by Apple’s M1 chip noticed that the browser become unresponsive after a system sleep.
“Firefox does not eventually become usable, ever (I waited about 5 minutes which I assumed was sufficient). One thing I did notice is that when I switch away from the Firefox window, and switch back, sometimes the window content would refresh. I could scroll (via the mouse wheel), which would cause no updating in the window, but if I were to then focus on another window, and re-focus the Firefox window, the browser content would be updated to display wherever I had scrolled to,” someone who reported the glitch on Bugzilla explained.
Bug-fixing update
As far as Linux is concerned, Mozilla says it resolved a problem that caused the browser to crash on launch.
The whole thing happened on various Linux distributions, including Fedora and Ubuntu. It was also confirmed to exist in the main Firefox 86 release.
The latest Firefox update also fixes an issue causing windows to gain or lose focus all of a sudden, according to the official release notes.
Needless to say, this isn’t a major update, but it’s one that’s worth installing because it further refines the experience with the browser on all desktop platforms out there.