Firefox 102: new ESR base and improved security – Ghacks
Firefox 102 and Firefox 102 ESR will be released later today. The new version of Mozilla’s Firefox web browser improves security, picture-in-picture mode, and is the new base for the Extended Support Release channel.
Executive Summary
Firefox 102 and all other versions released today are delivered via the browser’s automatic update feature to most devices. The update may not yet be available, if you are reading this on the day of release.
Direct downloads are also available, follow the links below to Mozilla’s download website, to download the new version of the browser.
Query Parameter Stripping
Starting in Firefox 102, a blocklist is used to strip known tracking parameters from top-level URLs.
The feature is enabled in the browser’s private browsing mode and when Firefox’s Enhanced Tracking Protection feature is set to strict.
Do the following to enable strict Tracking Protection:
Hide the download panel
To do that, right-click on the download icon and select “Show Panel when Download Begins” to toggle the functionality. If you see no checkmark in front of it, Firefox won’t display the download panel.
Developer
Two new policies added:
Mozilla fixed an issue that caused a bug in Deceptive Content and Dangerous Software Protection policies. Locking the policies did not disable the about:preferences user interface.
Known Issues
none listed.
Security updates are revealed after the official release of the web browser. You find the information published here after release.
Outlook
Firefox 103 will be released on July 26, 2022.
Firefox extension reviews and news
Recent Firefox news and tips
Additional information / sources
Thanks Martin. Nice updates. I am pleased. Great that bloklist and that audio decoding is moved to its own process with stricter sandboxing.
And there is more. Nice!
> Transform streams are supported by Firefox.
For developers, the biggest improvement for sure.
Enterprise changes : in fact four new policies have been added to Firefox 102 :
UseSystemPrintDialog, as noted
ExemptDomainFileTypePairsFromFileTypeDownloadWarnings, as noted
But as well,
AppUpdatePin : Prevent Firefox from being updated beyond the specified version.
StartDownloadsInTempDirectory : Force downloads to start off in a local, temporary location rather than the default download directory.
Otherwise, whatever update, I linger to understand why the Release Notes are never served simultaneously with the browser download availability :
“We’re still preparing the notes for this release, and will post them here when they are ready. Please check back later.”
I know, I may sound as an upstart crow yelling “Hep, you, bring me a coffee, presto”. I’ll add, “Please, Mozilla” :=)
Getting increasingly politer as years go by, lol.
> Firefox 103 will be released on August 23, 2022.
Actually, Firefox 103 will be released on July 27, 2022.
https://wiki.mozilla.org/Release_Management/Calendar
@errata,
Your comment only mentions “Firefox 103 will be released on August 23, 2022”
What are you referring to? Neither the article nor any another comment than yours mentions this.
> Actually, Firefox 103 will be released on July 27, 2022.
Good to know, but that’s an info, not a response …
“…whatever update, I linger to understand why the Release Notes are never served simultaneously with the browser download availability”
Perhaps they want people to update before they realize which cherished functionalities Mozilla has now ruined in the UI.
😉
Guess I go silent for 1 year about CSS and settings then, as my goal was achieved:
https://github.com/ran-sama/firefox-preferences#the-esr-78-look-is-finally-possible-on-esr-102
I hope this brings some joy to people who love the usability and workflow on a secure Fox 102 ESR whilst keeping true to the FF 78 look. Back when all was quite comfortable.
We’ll see how long the good ride continues. Cheers to another year!
3% market share browser overreported here just got to version 102? Fine, I guess.
What will gHacks focus on when Deplatformingfox has been totally run into the ground by Mozilla? Any new topics already planned? Martin, you should plan this in advance, Deplatformingfox only has a few years left before Mozilla either drops it entirely and focuses on political activism (their main thing even today) or change it to be Chromium-based…
The fact you are crying because a Firefox news was just written is so funny. Cry more please.
No-one besides Chrome on Android and Safari on iOS can get a look in. Perhaps Samsung on their devices. Mobile is over half the devices
When you look at desktop, Firefox is 7 to 8% which is nothing to be ashamed of, considering that the Edge comes bundled with Windows, and Microsoft play dirty games, while Chrome abuses it’s position to push non web standards and degrade other engines on their platforms, not to mention the advertising on it’s leading platforms such as search, gmail, youtube.
Firefox is losing around 1% a year for the last two years, so at this rate .. see you in 50 years. Meanwhile, Brave is a rounding error, owned by an advertising company
@Peacock365
> When you look at desktop
Why should I only look at the desktop? Desktops aren’t the primary devices of most people in 2022. Further, websites are created with flexible layouts today so that developers no longer have to create separate versions, one for desktop and one for mobile. That’s an antiquated way to look at it. A web dev would realistically see Firefox at 3%, not at 8% (which is still very low)
> while Chrome abuses it’s position to push non web standards and degrade other engines on their platforms
No, the standards are actually open and well-documented, and Mozilla (funded by Google, pseudo-opposition) supports most if not all of them. That’s not a reason to use FF. If you can’t implement these web standards because of technological ineptitude and in spite of all the Google money you get and are looking for excuses, please leave the market for good.
> Firefox is losing around 1% a year for the last two years, so at this rate .. see you in 50 years.
Firefox had 30% overall market share in 2010 and has 3% overall market share now. Getting to 0% market share doesn’t take 50 years at this rate. Math is not your strength.
> Meanwhile, Brave is a rounding error
Dude, Brave has 60 million monthly active users and FF has 200 million, so if Brave is in fact a rounding error, FF is not far above a rounding error either at this point. Way to kill your argument.
Btw, Brave is based on Chromium and Chromium has 80% market share (all browsers using it combined). Brave will not have any web compatibility issues because of that even if it stopped growing today. Where will Gecko be when Firefox reaches 60 million users? Most web devs will have dropped support for it by then. Brave can’t be dropped as long as Chrome / Edge aren’t dropped.
> owned by an advertising company
*an advertising company going out of their way to create a form of advertising that is not abusing user data in the process.
Also, don’t throw with stones in that glass house of yours, Mozilla is basically a Google subdivision, and Google’s business model, contrary to Brave Software’s, is actually based on surveillance. But you knew that already, didn’t you?
They haven’t and cannot deplatform, it’s not like they run censorship platforms like Facebook, Twitter or Youtube. Well who cares what percentage they are at, people still use it.
Opera has less usage than Firefox but people still use. If it’s irrelevant to you than why are you
bothering to comment, got nothing better to do ?
@Anonymous
Why are you even mad at me? Think about it, 3% market share is grossly mismatched with the overall number of reports here. Nobody outside ta small bubble here cares and you can’t rationally attack me for pointing that out.
> Opera has less usage than Firefox
How does that matter? Opera is based on Chromium. They have no web compat issues as long as browsers based on Chromium dominate the market. Can’t say the same about Firefox.
There goes the crow gain …
What the heck does a product’s market share have anything to do with its pros and cons, with users’ interest? Unless to consider that market shares are relevant of a product’s quality? The masses, intoxicated with marketing and with this odd but confirmed need to follow the trends, feed the market and would legitimate a product’s quality from there on?
Good Lord …
@Tom Hawack
Why are you even offended? Firefox is declining and barely has any market share left, and there is no sign of a turnaround. There are many amazing projects in the privacy sphere, both new and old, that are actually expanding and could have a future. Just because I would like to hear something about them instead of the convulsions of Firefox’s corpse that you and others mistake for signs of it being alive, does not mean I am a horrible person.
You don’t know how many percentage of us, readers of this site, are in fact using Firefox.
No need to get stressed this site has Firefox related articles? I am sure there are many sites for your preferred browsers.
T. K.
Firefox, Edge and Chrome user
@Iron Heart, what, what makes you think I’m offended?! I’m just stunned. Market share is not an argument, period. At least not for users, or shouldn’t be, because unfortunately it is for many of us.
> There are many amazing projects in the privacy sphere, both new and old, that are actually expanding and could have a future.
True. Why not take the opportunity to mention them whenever you can. Simultaneouly you’d recognize that emphasizing on maket shares is irelevant.
> Just because I would like to hear something about them instead of the convulsions of Firefox’s corpse that you and others mistake for signs of it being alive, does not mean I am a horrible person.
I’ve never read a comment spitting on any of yours which would have promoted fairly whatever product, which would have expressed the wish to hear more about hidden gems. Do it. But all those gems will never be brighter by systematically, repeatedly breaking another product, be it Firefox. You know that in debates, those in companies, those in politics, those among friends even, there are two methods : either promote what you like, either try to crucify what you hate and which may happen to be what your opponent likes. We all know that method 1 is the only to be valuable, the latter often considered as relevant of lack of arrguents.
i’m off. Most of the time I endure silently, this time i slipped.
> Most of the time I endure silently
Doubt.
What the heck does a product’s market share have anything to do with its pros and cons? Nothing, Iron Heart just likes to troll and post this and other spam in every Firefox article.
mary jane – that’s a good username, gives another silly excuse to listen to Mary Jane’s Last Dance again https://youtu.be/aowSGxim_O8
“…browser overreported here…”
It’s not “overreported here.” We WANT news about Firefox.
Post where you got this “3% market share” from. Go ahead. I dare you.
The only place that info exists is in your addled imagination.
Don’t even get me started on your precious Brave.
What’s it’s market share?
>> Post where you got this “3% market share” from. Go ahead. I dare you.
Here’s one of several popular polling/stats sites that indicate Firefox’s market share numbers have unfortunately dwindled down to single digits
https://gs.statcounter.com/browser-market-share
Of course different sites use different metrics to analyze their collected data but there’s a clear sad trend that Chromium-based browsers are now dominating. We have allowed the web browser usage to devolve back into a restrictive monoculture again. Back in the 90’s into the early 2000’s Microsoft shoved their IE/Trident/ActiveX into our faces, forcing web development to cater solely to work with Microsoft’s then anal online policies. Then Mozilla popped up and opened up a browser war with Firefox and web development shifted focus back to following W3C standards. Flash forward to now and Chromium-based browsers are killing off the competition. And don’t forget, Chromium may be be Open Source but its primary supporter/maintainer is Google, our new online overlord. Diversity in web development has died off yet again. All those who neglect to recall how bad Microsoft used to be is ignoring how bad Google has become.
And anti-fingerprinting was made useless for touch and pen users: https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1772711
Well, seems like they are coping Chromium competition. It’s like a lonely kid in High School trying to do everything other people do, but rarely gets attention.
Plus you know sandboxing is not going to do much security about anything, so doing sandboxing on the sound process is just marketing and just a way to pretend they are working on the browser more than they are.
I mean, it is open source so I guess we could go and check how well done and effective that sound process sanboxing is or if ‘bad people’ who use vulnerabilities to damage someone will even care about it, like how browsers put in memory in plain text all the info when you use a browser but it needs more work to do something about it than just other methods.
I mean, the update is literally nothing, audio might be more secure… but will it run better with all that sandboxing? will it desync? or will it end up consume more or less cpu?
Sandboxing is so useless, most people could turn it off and have better resources in their browsers and nothing would happen.
But what else? nothing, PiP that nobody will use to watch movies like that. Yandex supports subtitles for a while and same as others, Yandex supports it and I don’t know which other does to be honest, but I have used it twice because I was doing something else, but it was just a Youtube video, not like a movie I wanted to really sit and watch with subtitles if needed.
I mean, an article as long as this make it sound like some game changing amazing update and it was literally nothing. Firefox is dying, and more and more people use Chromium based browsers everyday, even Vivaldi with many downsides seem to gain some users lately, probably ones who don’t care about the downsides, but that shows Librewolf and the other many ‘forks’ which are just premade Firefoxes with a similar file, won’t save Firefox.
Anonymous is right. Yandex is the best browser. I personally run mine on Red Star OS and you should too. Don’t worry about any special operations that are running in the background, They are running to protect you from the fascists at Firefox.
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Ghacks is a technology news blog that was founded in 2005 by Martin Brinkmann. It has since then become one of the most popular tech news sites on the Internet with five authors and regular contributions from freelance writers.