Mozilla has announced Firefox 115 today and it’s a pretty big deal. Aside from bringing several new changes, which you can read below, it’s the last version of Firefox that will support Windows 7 and Windows 8.
Luckily for users of those very old operating systems, Firefox 115 is an Extended Support Release (ESR) version, so you’ll continue to get security updates for quite a while. Firefox 115 is also the last major version of Firefox that will support Apple macOS 10.12, 10.13, and 10.14. If you use any of these systems, you’ll be migrated to Firefox ESR seamlessly.
Now, onto the new features! The new update introduces the following items:
New
- Migrating from another browser? Now you can bring over payment methods you"ve saved in Chrome-based browsers to Firefox.
- Hardware video decoding is now enabled for Intel GPUs on Linux.
- The Tab Manager dropdown now features close buttons, so you can close tabs more quickly.
- We"ve refreshed and streamlined the user interface for importing data in from other browsers.
- Users without platform support for H264 video decoding can now fallback to Cisco"s OpenH264 plugin for playback.
Fixed
- Windows Magnifier now follows the text cursor correctly when the Firefox title bar is visible.
- Windows users on low-end/USB wifi drivers and with OS geolocation disabled can now approve geolocation on a case by case basis without causing system-wide network instability.
- Various security fixes.
Changed
- Undo and redo are now available in Password fields.
- On Linux, middle clicks on the new tab button will now open the xclipboard contents in the new tab. If the xclipboard content is a URL then that URL is opened, any other text is opened with your default search provider.
- For users with a Firefox Colorways built-in theme, the theme will be automatically migrated to the same theme hosted on addons.mozilla.org for Firefox profiles that have disabled add-ons auto-updates. This will allow users to keep their Colorways theme when they are later removed from Firefox installer files.
- Certain Firefox users may come across a message in the extensions panel indicating that their add-ons are not allowed on the site currently open. We have introduced a new back-end feature to only allow some extensions monitored by Mozilla to run on specific websites for various reasons, including security concerns.
As always, Firefox should update automatically in the background on Windows and macOS. It’s possible something has got stuck so you can head to Menu > Help > About Firefox and check for updates manually. If you’re on Linux, you’ll need to get the update from your software or update manager.