14 DAY TRIAL // Mozilla has just released Firefox 77 to production devices across the world, and now the company has started the work on the very next release due later this month.
Firefox 78 is projected to come with major changes for Linux and macOS, but also with a highly-anticipated new feature on Windows.
First and foremost, let’s see what’s new for users running Microsoft’s Windows operating system. Firefox 78 will come with a built-in PDF client, which means that you will be able to use Firefox as a PDF reader. At this point, such tasks are handled by Microsoft Edge by default on Windows, but some people turn to dedicated PDF clients or even to Google Chrome.
Additional information on PDF support in Mozilla Firefox is available here.
Linux requirements
Then, Firefox 78 will come with updated system requirements on Linux devices. Mozilla explains that it updated the minimal system requirements, so beginning with this new release, the browser requires the following on a Linux distro:
- GNU libc 2.17 or newer
- libstdc++ 4.8.1 or newer
- GTK+ 3.14 or newer
As far as macOS users are concerned, Firefox 78 will drop support for older versions of the operating system, with users now recommended to switch to the ESR build should they want to continue to receiving updates and security patches.
“Firefox 78 is the last major release with support for macOS versions 10.9, 10.10 and 10.11. Users of these macOS versions will be supported through Firefox ESR 78.x for the coming year,” Mozilla explains.
Firefox 78 is projected to land in the stable channel on June 30, so we’re only a few weeks away from the moment all these changes become available for all users. Everything is already available for you to try out in Firefox 78 beta.