Here is what is new and changed in Firefox 87.0

[mood]

Here is what is new and changed in Firefox 87.0

 

Mozilla plans to release Firefox 87.0 Stable and Firefox 78.9 ESR to the public on March 23, 2021. The browser will be released later on the day, and should be available if you are reading this after March 23, 2021.

 

The new versions of Firefox are available as automatic updates but also as direct downloads from Mozilla's main website and third-party sites as well.

 

All development versions of Firefox are released around the same time. Firefox Beta and Firefox Developer are updated to Firefox 88, Firefox Nightly is updated to version 89, and Firefox for Android will also be updated to version 87.0 eventually (the release was delayed somewhat recently).

 

Check out our Firefox 86.0 release overview in case you missed it.

Executive Summary

• Firefox 87 introduces SmartBlock, a feature to reduce website breakage when using private browsing or strict enhanced tracking protection.
• The default HTTP Referrer policy will trim the path so that only the domain name is submitted for cross-origin requests.
• Firefox 87 includes security fixes.

Firefox 87.0 download and update

Firefox 87.0 and Firefox ESR 78.9 are available via the browser's automatic update feature after the official release later on March 23, 2021. You can verify the installed version by selecting Menu > Help > About Firefox; this will also run a check for updates.

 

Manual downloads are also available. The following pages list direct downloads for supported Firefox channels.

• Firefox Stable download
• Firefox Beta download
• Nightly download
• Firefox ESR download
• Firefox for Android on Google Play

New features and improvements

 

Less website breakage

 

Firefox users who use the browser's private browsing mode or have set Enhanced Tracking Protection to Strict, benefit from a new feature that Mozilla calls SmartBlock.

SmartBlock is designed to reduce breakage on websites by using stand-in scripts on sites so that these load properly.

 

HTTP Referrer is trimmed

 

Starting in Firefox 87, the browser will trim the HTTP Referrer for all cross-origin requests, e.g. when a site loads a third-party resource such as an image or a stylesheet.

 

Instead of revealing the full path of the webpage the user is on, only the domain name will be revealed.

 

Check out our coverage of the feature here: Firefox 87 to limit the referrer for all cross-origin requests

 

Other changes

• Highlight All of the Find in Page feature displays marks on the scrollbar that correspond to matches on the page.
• Built-in support for he Mac OS built-in screen reader, VoiceOver.
• Support for the Silesian locale.
• Several accessibility related fixes.
• The Backspace key is now disabled as a navigation shortcut in order to prevent data loss when filling out forms. The shortcut Alt-Left-Arrow or Command-Left-Arrow may be used instead.  Firefox users who want to restore the functionality may set browser.backspace_action to 0 on about:config.
• The menu items Synced tabs, Recent highlights and Pocket list were removed from the Library menu.
• The Help menu has been simplified.

 

Firefox for Android

 

Coming once it is released.

Developer Changes

• Starting March 15, 2021, all extension developers must enable two-factor authentication to better protect their accounts.
• The Page Inspector tool supports the simulation of prefers-color-scheme media queries and options to toggle the :target pseudo class for the currently selected element.
• Other Page Inspector improvements include that table-layout and scroll-padding properties are marked as inactive for non-table elements or non-scrollable elements.
• The <link> element is no longer matched by :link, :visited, or :any-link.
• Several Firefox-specific theme-related media features, including moz-windows-classic, moz-scrollbar-end-forward, or -moz-menubar-drag, have been disabled for use in webpages.
• Users of enterprise authentication services that require that TLS client certificates are sent in CORS preflight requests may enable network.cors_preflight.allow_client_cert to allow that.
• The policies.json file is no longer ignored if policies are specified on Windows (GPO) or Mac OS (configuration profiles).

 

Known Issues

• The release notes list no known issues.

Security updates / fixes

Security updates are revealed after the official release of the web browser. You find the information published here after release.

 

Outlook

 

Firefox 88.0 will be released on March 23, 2021 according to the Firefox release schedule.

 

 

Source: Here is what is new and changed in Firefox 87.0

[aum]

Firefox 87 introduces SmartBlock for Private Browsing

 

Today, with the launch of Firefox 87, we are excited to introduce SmartBlock, a new intelligent tracker blocking mechanism for Firefox Private Browsing and Strict Mode. SmartBlock ensures that strong privacy protections in Firefox are accompanied by a great web browsing experience.

Privacy is hard

At Mozilla, we believe that privacy is a fundamental right and that everyone deserves to have their privacy protected while they browse the web. Since 2015, as part of the effort to provide a strong privacy option, Firefox has included the built-in Content Blocking feature that operates in Private Browsing windows and Strict Tracking Protection Mode. This feature automatically blocks third-party scripts, images, and other content from being loaded from cross-site tracking companies reported by Disconnect. By blocking these tracking components, Firefox Private Browsing windows prevent them from watching you as you browse.

 

In building these extra-strong privacy protections in Private Browsing windows and Strict Mode, we have been confronted with a fundamental problem: introducing a policy that outright blocks trackers on the web inevitably risks blocking components that are essential for some websites to function properly. This can result in images not appearing, features not working, poor performance, or even the entire page not loading at all.

New Feature: SmartBlock

To reduce this breakage, Firefox 87 is now introducing a new privacy feature we are calling SmartBlock.

 

SmartBlock intelligently fixes up web pages that are broken by our tracking protections, without compromising user privacy.

 

SmartBlock does this by providing local stand-ins for blocked third-party tracking scripts. These stand-in scripts behave just enough like the original ones to make sure that the website works properly. They allow broken sites relying on the original scripts to load with their functionality intact.

 

The SmartBlock stand-ins are bundled with Firefox: no actual third-party content from the trackers are loaded at all, so there is no chance for them to track you this way. And, of course, the stand-ins themselves do not contain any code that would support tracking functionality.

 

In Firefox 87, SmartBlock will silently stand in for a number of common scripts classified as trackers on the Disconnect Tracking Protection List. Here’s an example of a performance improvement:

 

An example of SmartBlock in action. Previously (left), the website tiny.cloud had poor loading performance in Private Browsing windows in Firefox because of an incompatibility with strong Tracking Protection. With SmartBlock (right), the website loads properly again, while you are still fully protected from trackers found on the page.

 

We believe the SmartBlock approach provides the best of both worlds: strong protection of your privacy with a great browsing experience as well.

 

These new protections in Firefox 87 are just the start! Stay tuned for more SmartBlock innovations in upcoming versions of Firefox.

The team

This work was carried out in a collaboration between the Firefox webcompat and anti-tracking teams, including Thomas Wisniewski, Paul Zühlcke and Dimi Lee with support from many Mozillians including Johann Hofmann, Wennie Leung, Mikal Lewis, Tim Huang, Ethan Tseng, Selena Deckelmann, Prangya Basu, Arturo Marmol, Tanvi Vyas, Karl Dubost, Oana Arbuzov, Sergiu Logigan, Cipriani Ciocan, Mike Taylor, Arthur Edelstein, and Steven Englehardt.

 

We also want to acknowledge the NoScript and uBlock Origin teams for helping to pioneer this approach.

 

Source