14 DAY TRIAL // Mozilla officially released today the Firefox 68 web browser for all supported platforms, including Linux, Mac, and Windows, making it an ESR (Extended Support Release) version.
The popular open-source and cross-platform Firefox web browser from Mozilla has been updated to version 68.0, a major release that expands the dark mode in the reader view to make the controls, toolbars, and sidebars on windows dark too. Additionally, Firefox 68 introduces new cryptomining and fingerprinting protections to strict content blocking settings.
Firefox 68 also improves add-on security and discovery by introducing a Recommended Extensions program in about:addons to help users easily find high quality and secure add-ons and themes, a new reporting feature in about:addons to let users quickly report security and performance issues with add-ons, and revamp the extensions dashboard in about:addons.
For Windows users, Firefox 68 makes the WebRender available on Windows 10 systems with AMD Radeon graphics cards and adds support for the Windows Background Intelligent Transfer Service (BITS) to allow the web browser to update itself in the background when it's closed.
Among other changes, Firefox 68 implements more security measures so that local files no longer access other files in the same directory, require secure HTTPS connections for the camera and microphone, and adds a new method for syncing non-default preferences. Of course, numerous security issues has been fixed as well.
What's new for ESR (Extended Support Release) users in Firefox 68
As Firefox 68 is now that latest ESR (Extended Support Release) series of the open-source web browser, there are several new features for ESR users to improve their browsing experience in enterprise environments. These include a MSI installer for Windows deployments, configuration profiles for macOS deployments, and the ability to read certificate roots from the macOS Keychain.
Several new extra policies were added as well in Firefox 68 ESR for all support platforms, including local file links, new tab page configuration and disabling, download behavior, search suggestions, extension blacklisting and whitelisting by website and ID, managed storage for using policies in Webextensions, and a subset of commonly used Firefox preferences. You can download Firefox 68 for Linux, macOS, and Windows right now.