by Martin Brinkmann on December 03, 2019 in Firefox – Last Update: December 03, 2019 –
1 comment
Firefox 71.0 is the new stable version of the Firefox web browser as of December 3, 2019; it is the last major stable release of 2019, the next stable Firefox release will be released on January 7, 2019.
New versions are released for all Firefox channels. Firefox Beta and Dev are upgraded to version 72, Firefox Nightly to version 73, and Firefox ESR (Extended Support Release) to version 68.3.
Check out the Firefox 70.0 release overview here in case you missed it.
Executive Summary
- Firefox 71.0 supports new kiosk mode functionality.
- Picture-in-Picture mode enabled on Windows.
- Native Mp3 encoding integrated.
Firefox 71.0 download and update
The following pages list direct downloads for supported Firefox channels.
- Firefox Stable download
- Firefox Beta download
- Nightly download
- Firefox ESR download
Firefox 70.0 Changes
Picture-in-Picture Mode is available in Firefox for Windows
Windows users who run Firefox 71.0 may use the browser’s picture-in-picture — short PIP — mode in the new version of the browser. PIP mode moves videos to their own window that acts independently (to a degree) from the tab and page they are embedded in.
All that it takes is to move the mouse cursor over the video area to display and activate the picture-in-picture option.
The video starts to play in its own area on the screen. Controls are a bit limited right now and some are only available on the webpage the video is embedded on.
The video remains visible if you switch tabs. It is not possible to close the browser tab however as doing so will close the video.
Mozilla plans to introduce picture-in-picture mode in Firefox for Mac OS X and Linux in the future.
New Certificates Viewer
Firefox 71.0 features a new certificates viewer. I reviewed the new version in August 2019 already and suggest you check out the article as it covers everything.
The redesigned certificates viewer opens in a tab in the browser and may remind users of the Firefox add-on Certainly Something which offers similar functionality.
Other changes
- The about:config page has been reimplemented using HTML.
- New Firefox Kiosk mode is now available.
- Native MP3 encoding on all desktop systems (Windows, Mac and Linux)
- Firefox supports Catalan, Tagalog and Triqui interface languages.
- Firefox Lockwise, the integrated password manager supports subdomains and will auto-fill logins in the new version.
- Integrated Breach Alerts support screen readers.
- Tracking Protection may display notifications when cryptominers are blocked.
- Extension popups display the name of the extension instead of moz-extension://
Firefox for Android
- Performance and stability updates.
Firefox 70.0 known issues
None according to the release notes.
Developer Changes
- Web Sockets Inspector is enabled by default.
- Multi-line mode of the Console is available by default.
- Full Text search of network requests/response bodies, headers and cookies.
- Media Session API partially implemented.
- The Downloads API supports certain HTTP response codes
Security updates / fixes
Security updates are revealed after the official release of the web browser. You find the information published here later today.
Additional information / sources
- Firefox 71 release notes
- Add-on compatibility for Firefox 71
- Firefox 71 for Developers
- Site compatibility for Firefox 71
- Firefox Security Advisories
- Firefox Release Schedule