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Firefox 54.0: find out what is new


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Firefox 54.0 has been released on June 13, 2017 to the stable channel. The new version is offered through the Firefox web browser's automatic update functionality, and also provided as a direct download from Mozilla's website.

All other Firefox channels, those are Beta, Nightly and ESR, are also updated. Mozilla did remove the Aurora channel from the release cycle when Firefox 53 was released.

Firefox Beta is promoted to version 55, Firefox Nightly to version 56, and Firefox ESR to version 52.2

Executive Summary

  • Mozilla enabled multiple content processes for Firefox's multi-process architecture for the majority of eligible systems. The number has been raised from 1 to 4 content processes.

Firefox 54.0 download and update

firefox 54.0

Firefox Stable is configured by default to check for updates automatically. The browser's automatic update feature will pick up the Firefox 54.0 update automatically, download it, and install it on most Firefox systems.

The update check is not in realtime, but you may run it at any time manually in the following way:

  • Tap on the Alt-key on the keyboard, and select Help > About Firefox from the menu.

Firefox queries Mozilla's servers for update information. Depending on how the browser is configured, if an update is found it may be downloaded and installed directly, or on user request.

 

Firefox 54.0 Changes

Support for multiple content processes

firefox multiple content processes

The big new feature of Firefox 54.0 is support for multiple content processes. Firefox's multi-process architecture has been integrated in previous versions of the Firefox browser, but up until now with only one content process.

What this means is that all websites and services open in Firefox at any time use the same content process. Still good in terms of reliability of the browser as the browser ui is running in a separate process, but not as good as separating these into multiple content processes.

Chrome for instance uses one process per site. Firefox won't do that, and the main reason why is that it impacts performance and memory use too much.

Mozilla picked four content processes as the default for the switch. So, once Firefox is updated to 54, the bulk of Firefox installations with multi-process enabled, will use four content processes instead of just one.

Firefox users may set the number of content processes manually (read all there is to know about multi-process Firefox in our guide)

  1. Type about:config in the Firefox address bar.
  2. Find dom.ipc.processCount.
  3. Double-click the preference, and change its value to a positive integer. This is the number of content processes that Firefox will use.

Other Firefox 54.0 changes

  • Burmese (my) locale added.
  • Moved mobile bookmarks folder to the main bookmarks folder.
  • Simplified download button and download status panel

Developer Changes

  • 5.1 surround sound playback is enabled by default on all desktop versions of Firefox.
  • The network request summary and the performance analysis view list the transferred size now.
  • Support for VP9 codec in encrypted streams using Clear Key and Widevine added.
  • VP8-encoded webm/video media playback is supported always now, regardless of system performance (previously not allowed if system was considered to be not fast enough).
  • HTTP/1 pipelining is no longer supported. Veteran Firefox users may know related preferences from speed up articles that are a decade old, or older.
  • Developers may add custom devices to the Responsive Device Mode of the developer tools.
  • WebExtension APIS: Sidebars, New Tab Page customization, custom protocol registering, and custom DevTools panels.

Firefox 54.0 for Android

  • Bookmark sync performance has been improved.
  • Bulgarian (bg) and Kabyle (kab) locales added.
  • More reliable audio and video playback.
  • File names are preserved correctly on upload.
  • Formatting for right-to-left languages fixed.

Security updates / fixes

Security information is released after the release of the update. We will add the information once Mozilla makes it available.

  • CVE-2017-5472: Use-after-free using destroyed node when regenerating trees
  • CVE-2017-7749: Use-after-free during docshell reloading
  • CVE-2017-7750: Use-after-free with track elements
  • CVE-2017-7751: Use-after-free with content viewer listeners
  • CVE-2017-7752: Use-after-free with IME input
  • CVE-2017-7754: Out-of-bounds read in WebGL with ImageInfo object
  • CVE-2017-7755: Privilege escalation through Firefox Installer with same directory DLL files
  • CVE-2017-7756: Use-after-free and use-after-scope logging XHR header errors
  • CVE-2017-7757: Use-after-free in IndexedDB
  • CVE-2017-7778: Vulnerabilities in the Graphite 2 library
  • CVE-2017-7758: Out-of-bounds read in Opus encoder
  • CVE-2017-7759: Android intent URLs can cause navigation to local file system
  • CVE-2017-7760: File manipulation and privilege escalation via callback parameter in Mozilla Windows Updater and Maintenance Service
  • CVE-2017-7761: File deletion and privilege escalation through Mozilla Maintenance Service helper.exe application
  • CVE-2017-7762: Addressbar spoofing in Reader mode
  • CVE-2017-7763: Mac fonts render some unicode characters as spaces
  • CVE-2017-7764: Domain spoofing with combination of Canadian Syllabics and other unicode blocks
  • CVE-2017-7765: Mark of the Web bypass when saving executable files
  • CVE-2017-7766: File execution and privilege escalation through updater.ini, Mozilla Windows Updater, and Mozilla Maintenance Service
  • CVE-2017-7767: Privilege escalation and arbitrary file overwrites through Mozilla Windows Updater and Mozilla Maintenance Service
  • CVE-2017-7768: 32 byte arbitrary file read through Mozilla Maintenance Service
  • CVE-2017-5471: Memory safety bugs fixed in Firefox 54
  • CVE-2017-5470: Memory safety bugs fixed in Firefox 54 and Firefox ESR 52.2

Additional information / sources

https://www.ghacks.net/2017/06/13/firefox-54-0-find-out-what-is-new/

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Just a heads up, my process count did not rise to 4 after the upgrade. Stayed on 1 per the config page. FF 54.0 x64

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7 minutes ago, sam3971 said:

Just a heads up, my process count did not rise to 4 after the upgrade. Stayed on 1 per the config page. FF 54.0 x64

You can check the about:support page in Firefox to find out whether multi-process is enabled or not. Only if enabled, you'll get more than one process.

 

To change number of processes, read this guide.

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Just now, vissha said:

You can check the about:support page in Firefox to find out whether multi-process is enabled or not. Only if enabled, you'll get more than one process.

 

Yea, it is an addon haha.

 

Thank you.

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Hi,

 

Just a heads up all. Norton Toolbar disabled multi-process. Disabling it fixes the issue. This is as of the latest build of Norton 22.9.4.8.

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Hi,
Anyone who knows how to get rid of the "Mobile bookmarks folder"? Its useless for me.

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3 hours ago, Sandman said:

Hi,
Anyone who knows how to get rid of the "Mobile bookmarks folder"? Its useless for me.

("browser.bookmarks.showMobileBookmarks", false);

 

If it reverts to True, use the entry either on a lockPref or a user_pref.

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@dcs18 Thanks for your reply. First I tried changing the setting in about:config, then using the code in user_pref. Unfortunately both ways didn't work. The folder reappears after restarting Firefox. I haven't tried lockPref.
After some digging in the internet I found out that its a bug and has been reported here.

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I find that zoom rectangle inside url bar is so fucking annoing.

 

And also why the fuck they are forcing everything up to customers, while there are simple ways to install this or that? Open source company, profiting on ???, well you can call me slow.

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