Firefox 98.0.2 fixes a crash on Windows, an add-ons issue, and more

Mozilla plans to release a new stable version of the organization's Firefox web browser today. Firefox 98.0.2 includes four fixes, one of which resolves a crash issue on Windows.

Once released, Firefox installations should receive the update automatically thanks to the built-in updating functionality of the browser. Selecting Menu > Help > About Firefox displays the version that is installed currently and runs a check for updates. The manual check will pick up the new version provided that Mozilla gave the go for release already.

The official release notes will become later today on this page.

Firefox 98.0.2

Firefox 98.0.2 fixes four issues in the web browser. The first issue, filed under bug 1757618 on Mozilla's bug tracking website Bugzilla, fixes a browser crash on Windows machines. The investigation discovered that 32-bit builds of Firefox were affected predominantly, and that Firefox would crash because of an out-of-memory event.

Mozilla fixed the issue by reducing the allocation size on all installations except on Mac OS with aarch64 CPUs.

The second issue is specific to certain add-ons that users have installed in Firefox. It is related to using add-ons to sign-in to eGovernment sites that use pkcs11 modules. According to the reporter on Bugzilla, add-ons affected by the issue would not provide the functionality they were designed to provide. The update to Firefox 98.0.2 resolves the issue.

The third fixed issue affects Firefox on Mac OS systems that prevent users from typing in the browser's address bar under certain circumstances.

The bug reporter listed the following steps to reproduce the issue:

1. Open a new tab in the browser and select the address bar.
2. Use Cmd-Enter.
3. The attempt to type anything in the address bar fails.

The shortcut Cmd-Enter, the Windows equivalent is Ctrl-Enter, appends .com to the address automatically.

Bug 1758664 lists the fourth and final issue on Bugzilla. The starting page of an internal time tracking website, powered by Bosch ATOSS, returned a blank page in Firefox 98.0. The page worked fine in previous versions. Mozilla analyzed the issue and changed the behavior regarding the loading of iframes from session history.

Mozilla plans to release the new version of Firefox later today on March 23, 2022. Firefox 99 will be released on April 5, 2022 according to the release schedule.

Now You: did you run into any of these issues?

Firefox 98.0.2 fixes a crash on Windows, an add-ons issue, and more

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