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Firefox 48 is out with lots of changes

Here is a new release of the popular Firefox 48 browser. This is the first release where you cannot disable add-on signature enforcement. Here is what's new in version 48.

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Firefox 48Here are key changes in Firefox 48.
Add-on signature enforcement
With Firefox 48, the about:config option xpinstall.signatures.required has no effect. The user will no longer be able to disable the add-on digital signature enforcement. If you still need to use some unsigned extension, or you are an add-on developer, you can use the following solutions:

The "process per tab" feature
As expected, Firefox 48 comes with "Electrolysis" (process per tab, e10s) enabled for some users. The e10s feature is enabled for 1% of users who do not use add-ons mostly. If this experiment is problem free, then the percentage of users for whom e10s is enabled can be increased. If it causes issues, Mozilla developers can terminate it. You can check if it is enabled for you by doing the following steps:

  1. In the address bar, type
    about:support
  2. Scroll down to Application Basics table and look for the "Multiprocess Windows" row. For me, it was not available:Firefox 48 e10s disabled

New download protection options
The download security options in Firefox have not changed for a long time. In Firefox, new options "Block dangerous and deceptive content", "Block dangerous downloads" and "Warn me about unwanted and uncommon software" were added to the Security page of Preferences.fx48_security_options

So, Firefox extends the existing protection to include two additional kinds of downloads: potentially unwanted software and uncommon downloads.
When you download a file, the download button now reflects the download category set by the download protection.

Uncommon download:uncommon_badge

Dangerous download:dangerous_badge

Depending on the category, the default action button will be either "open" or "remove":dangerous_doorhanger-1 uncommon_doorhanger-1 unwanted_doorhanger-1

The browser shows a confirmation dialog for every case.

Potentially unwanted downloads: unwanted_dialog

Uncommon downloads:uncommon_dialog

Malicious downloads:dangerous_dialog

In the download list, there is a new context menu which will allow the user to apply the desired action to selected entries:context_menu

You can find more details about this release at the following page: Firefox 48 release notes

As of this writing, the official download page has not been updated yet, however, you can refer to Mozilla's FTP server and download the newest version of the browser right now

Download Firefox 48

Do you like changes in this release? Tell us in comments.

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Author: Sergey Tkachenko

Sergey Tkachenko is a software developer who started Winaero back in 2011. On this blog, Sergey is writing about everything connected to Microsoft, Windows and popular software. Follow him on Telegram, Twitter, and YouTube.

One thought on “Firefox 48 is out with lots of changes”

  1. FF 48. Never used “Unsorted” bookmark folder and don’t really want “Other Bookmarks” folder and not keen on apparent “auto save” of a bookmark after 5 second delay. Can I hide “Other Bookmarks” and negate the “auto save” function?

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