Firefox 147 released, allows customizing keyboard shortcuts conveniently

Mozilla has released the latest stable version, Firefox 147, along with ESR updates, versions 140.7.0 and 115.32.0. The new version supports the XDG Base Directory specification, enables Compression Dictionary Transport for efficient data transfer, and introduces a keyboard shortcut customization page at about:keyboard. Here are the details.

What's new in Firefox 147

Improvements and new features

• A new configuration page, about:keyboard, allows users to customize or override keyboard shortcuts to avoid conflicts with other applications.
• Hardware-accelerated video playback on AMD GPUs now operates in zero-copy mode, matching existing optimizations for Intel and NVIDIA systems. Additionally, macOS devices powered by Apple Silicon now support the WebGPU API.
• Enhanced Tracking Protection in Strict mode now enforces Local Network Access (LNA) restrictions by default, blocking public websites from accessing local network resources such as routers or printers, thereby mitigating CSRF risks.
• The browser now supports Compression Dictionary Transport (RFC 9842), which reduces data transfer size using Zstandard (dcz) and Brotli (dcb) compression combined with dictionary-based techniques. This includes delta-compression, where only changes between resource versions are transmitted.

Platform-Specific Updates

• On Linux systems running GNOME with the Mutter compositor, Firefox 147 corrects blurry rendering at fractional scaling levels. Android builds now include Spectre-class side-channel attack mitigations, previously limited to desktop platforms.
• On Linux, Firefox 147 introduces support for the Freedesktop.org XDG Base Directory specification, enabling user profiles, extensions, settings, and internal databases to reside in the ~/.config/mozilla directory. The legacy ~/.mozilla path remains available via the environment variable MOZ_LEGACY_HOME=1.

Web Platform and Security Improvements

• Firefox 147 implements Safe Browsing Protocol version 5, enabling local storage and use of SHA256 hash prefix blocklists provided by Google. The browser also enables automatic Picture-in-Picture video resumption when switching tabs.
• Language negotiation via the Accept-Language header now aligns with other browsers, assigning a q-value of 0.9 to the second preferred language and decrementing by 0.1 for each subsequent entry.
• ICU has been updated to version 78, adding Unicode 17 support and refreshed locale data. Service Workers now support ECMAScript Modules (ESM), and CSS Module Scripts allow JavaScript-style imports of CSS resources.

CSS, APIs, and Developer Tools

• New CSS capabilities include support for counter-* and quotes properties in the ::marker pseudo-element, relative units rcap, rch, rex, and ric, and CSS Anchor Positioning for popovers without JavaScript.
• The View Transitions API gains a type property, a corresponding CSS selector :active-view-transition-type, and the document.activeViewTransition interface. The Navigation API offers a modern alternative to window.history and window.location for single-page applications.
• Developer tools now support editing pseudo-element selectors, display @position-try rules, visualize View Transitions pseudo-elements, and include a button to import JSON resources into Firefox Profiler.

Security Fixes

This release resolves 23 vulnerabilities. Ten stem from memory safety issues, including buffer overflows and use-after-free conditions, which could enable remote code execution. Three additional flaws relate to sandbox escape risks due to integer overflows and boundary check failures in the graphics component.

Download Firefox 147

• On Windows, if you have Firefox installed, then open the browser menu and select “About Firefox.” This will install the latest Firefox version.
• Alternatively, you may download the installer directly from the official release directory: https://releases.mozilla.org/pub/firefox/releases/147.0/. This page provides platform-specific builds organized into subdirectories by operating system, architecture, and interface language. Full offline installer packages are available for all supported configurations.
• Linux users are advised to install or update Firefox through their distribution’s package manager. For example, on Ubuntu or Linux Mint with the official mozillateam PPA enabled, execute the following command in a terminal with appropriate privileges:

apt update && apt install firefox

The official release notes for Firefox 146 are available at: https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/147.0/releasenotes/.

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