Firefox 124.0 launches with new features and security fixes
Mozilla has released Firefox 124.0 Stable and Firefox 115.9 ESR. The new stable version of the organization's Firefox web browser fixes security issues and introduces some new features and improvements as well.
Notable features include caret browsing support in the integrated PDF reader, expanded availability of the search engines Qwant and Ecosia, and a new tab order view mode in Firefox View.
All development editions of Firefox are updated at around the same time. Firefox Beta and Development editions move to Firefox 125 and Firefox Nightly to version. The Android version follows the desktop version, which means that it is updated to version 124 as well.
Executive Summary
- Firefox 124 is a security update first and foremost.
- Only a few new features or improvements are found in this release, including caret browsing mode support in the PDF viewer.
- Mozilla appears to have fixed the "all black" thumbnails issue on older AMD systems, as it is not listed anymore as an issue.
Firefox 124.0 download and update
Firefox installs updates automatically by default. The new Firefox 124.0 update will also be installed automatically on most non-managed systems. This updating does not happen in real time though.
Note: our review is published before the official release. The updates will become later on the day of publication.
Once released officially, Firefox users may speed up the installation of the update in the following way:
Select Firefox Menu > Help > About Firefox to run a manual update check. Firefox should pick up the update and install it on the device.
Here are the official download locations:
- Firefox Stable download
- Firefox Beta download
- Nightly download
- Firefox ESR download
- Firefox for Android on Google Play
Firefox 124.0 changes
Firefox View: new tab sort order
Firefox View is a tab and activity management feature of the Firefox web browser. It can be activated with a click on the Firefox View button in the main Firefox toolbar to display open and recently closed tabs, as well as tabs from other devices and the browsing history.
Everything is searchable. The open tabs view sorted activity by freshness up until now. Mozilla added the option to sort the listed open tabs by tab order instead in that view. Tab order lists open tabs in the order that they are displayed on Firefox's tab bar.
Other changes and fixes
- The search engine Qwant is now also available "in the France region" as well as in Belgium, Italy, Netherlands, Spain, and Switzerland.
- The search engine Ecosia is now also available "in the Germany region" as well as Austria, Belgium, Italiy, Netherlands, Spain, Sweden, and Switzerland.
- Caret browsing mode is now supported by Firefox's native PDF viewer.
- Mozilla says that it has improved the population of the jump list of Firefox on the Windows taskbar. It should "allow for a smoother overall browsing experience". Let me know if you notice any difference.
- Firefox uses the macOS fullscreen API now for all fullscreen windows. This should improve the user experience on macOS.
Developer changes
- Support for AbortSignal.any(), which can be used to abort an operation from multiple signal sources.
- The ::first-letter and ::first-line CSS pseudo-elements can now be applied to the <text> SVG element.
- The runtime.onPerformanceWarning event reveals to extension developers if an extension has runtime performance issues.
- Support for SharedArrayBuffer growable (enable via javascript.options.experimental.sharedarraybuffer_growable).
- Support for resizing ArrayBuffer (enable via javascript.options.experimental.arraybuffer_resizable)
Enterprise changes
Mozilla has added one policy and updated another in Firefox 124.0:
- The AllowFileSelectionDialogs is new. It may be used to control file selection dialogs in Firefox.
- The DNSOverHTTPS policy supports setting a fallback value now to prevent Firefox falling back to the default DNS provider.
Security updates / fixes
The aggregated security rating is high. Mozilla patched 12 security issues and potential security issues in Firefox. This includes one potential memory safety issue with a critical rating. No exploits in the wild.
Outlook
Firefox 125 and Firefox ESR 115.10 will be released on April 16, 2024.
Recent Firefox news and tips
How to enable Tab Previews in Firefox
Additional information / resources
- Firefox 124 release notes
- Firefox 124 for Developers
- Firefox 124 for Enterprise
- Firefox Security Advisories
- Firefox Release Schedule
Closing Words
Firefox 124 is a smaller release. Since it fixes security issues, it is still important to update to the new version as soon as possible.
Now You: have you tried Firefox recently?
r3dactedfox (r3dfox) is modern Firefox but Windows 7 compatible
https://github.com/Eclipse-Community/r3dfox
How serious are the critical security vulnerabilities that 124.1 patched?
Good question. Mozilla makes no mention of exploits in the wild. They are critical security issues on the other hand. Update asap if you can.
Last minute critical upgrades : Firefox 124.0 & 115.9.0 ESR to 124.0.1 & 115.9.1 ESR
Read all about it : [https://chipp.in/security-privacy/firefox-124-0-1-fixes-two-critical-security-issues/]
Martin, heads up for all..
Mozilla Firefox * UNSCHEDULED Releases *
22nd March 2024
Firefox 124.0.1
Mozilla Release Notes:
https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/124.0.1/releasenotes/
Firefox 115.9.1esr
Mozilla Release Notes:
https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/115.9.1esr/releasenotes/
2 Critical Impacts are as follows:
CVE-2024-29943: Out-of-bounds access via Range Analysis bypass
CVE-2024-29944: Privileged JavaScript Execution via Event Handlers
The problem is not that Firefox’s rendering engine is bad its that Google has hijacked web standards and you have lazy, stupid and cheap companies that do not believe in having an open internet because the companies that employee these webmasters are just lousy, money hungry, corporate slobs that care not for anything other than themselves.
They are not the heart of the internet nor are they a part of the generation that grow up with the internet. They are in fact part of the reason why the internet is so shit these days. The very reason why a lot of the things and sites you once enjoyed suck these days.
Google falls well within this category. I am sorry if that hurts your fragile beliefs but it is in fact true. Mozilla may not be a saint by any stretch and yes, they have made a lot of mistakes but they are well below the levels of garbage that is Google.
It’s disappointing that this release does not have huge updates or whatever else but not all releases are like that at all. Not only in browsers and certainly not limited to Firefox either so if this entire argument is about how this update is not great then its a poor point to make.
In the end I still do think that Mozilla could and should do better but I guess we will have to wait and see.
I am still using Firefox 51.the last and the best version of Firefox…no reason to update.
For me, this update is significantly faster and all my time-out issues have gone.
Imagine if Chromium had this type of garbage update, and then Chrome, Edge, Vivaldi, Opera or Brave… the Firefox fanboys would be throwing some confetti, but somehow there is so much silence in every Firefox update because nothing ever gets added.
For example Ecosia and Qwant use Bing API, that means these non-private search engines are giving money to Microsoft, and also, they are giving data to Microsoft, and no, masking a tiny portion of the IP will not matter, they know your carrier country and all that.
Caret Browsing is like exactly what people always are turning off or they ask “why is my browser like this” “well press F7″… who uses that?
and Jumplist ‘improvements’ do they mean it was broken and they fixed it?
well at least they added some CSS stuff, always more stuff is always good…. even if they added the CSS stuff nobody really uses.
Dead browser dying while taking money from Google and doing the least efforts to improve it because saving money (= more money for their pockets) is important…. nothing new.
Imagine if Firefox had this type of garbage update, and then Mull, Fennec or Librewolf… the Google fanboys would be throwing some confetti, but somehow there is so much silence in every Chrome update because nothing ever gets added other than another zero day.
For example Google Search use Google API, that means these non-private search engines are giving money to Google, and also, they are giving data to Google, and no, masking a tiny portion of the IP will not matter, they know your carrier country and all that.
AI Tab Organizer is like exactly what people always are turning off or they ask “why is my browser like this” “well it sends data back to Google?… who uses that?
and Security ‘improvements’ do they mean it was broken and they fixed it?
well at least they added some Safe Browsing Telemetry, always more telemetry is always good…. even if they added the Safe Browsing Telemetry stuff nobody really uses.
Dead browser dying while taking money from NSA and doing the least efforts to improve it because saving money (= more money for their pockets) is important…. nothing new.
@Anonymous, I don’t think that FF is dying, however I think that it’s true that some new rendering features would be needed as soon as possible. I am honestly expecting a fluenty hybrid chromized engined in the near future, or even an option like “open this website as chromium” or something similar. I don’t want a complete Chromium engine because if I wanted to use Chrome it’s avaliable the original obe, I just mean to add some mechanism to ensure that the website will be open with the best html5/css compliant. Just my opinion with no flaming intention at all.
@ John G.
Chromium vs Chrome. Both are owned by Google but the former is open source: https://www.chromium.org/chromium-projects/
@TeIV, indeed Chromium and Chrome are not exactly the same considering telemetry.
@Anonymous
Nice try at trolling, better luck next time.
remove ai and i will update if not i will not update because ai has show me it is a clear danger
but they can lie and get away with it ai took over my pc and a189 around where i live at it is a clear danger
SearXNG is the best search engine. Instead of relying on one it just uses them all. fully customizable, opensource, private, you can run it locally on your computer via docker or on a local server on your network.
First of all search is a touchy subject for Mozilla because they are technically Googles bitch and nerf the search engine options. Having more search engines is good but the decision to limit certain demographics is amusing. The first thing I do when on a fresh install of Firefox is change the search engine from Google to something else and than install Ublock Origin. I hope get they get this behavior recorded with their user analytics.
Secondly they need to play catch up with Edge and Vilvadi, these two have superior tab management. They dropped Tab Groups only to release a dumbed down and inferior iteration.
@ishouldkunalivemyself
Indeed, but then name a browser that doesn’t have Google as one of the preset search engines. Brave, Opera, even Edge has Google as a preset, which means they get Google money.
I use LibreWolf on Windows and Mull on Android.
You’ll get no complaints from me!
I use to use FF with the arkenfox user.js but it just got to be tiresome…….
Thanks for the like-always informative latest Firefox release info article. This time Mozilla Firefox 124. My favourite in Firefox view is the handy recent browsing feature maybe because i use it the most.
I wonder how real is the French-owned search engine Qwant slogan “The search engine that doesn’t know anything about you” is? The slogan goes on with “Qwant prioritizes web safety by keeping away from trackers and cookies.” I wonder how true this is?
https://www.makeuseof.com/qwant-vs-duckduckgo-which-search-engine-most-private/
https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/124.0/releasenotes/
@Paul(us), I always have 12 different search engines available and at one time Qwant was in the lot. I’ve removed it.
Not for privacy reasons, though I have no evidence in either way, but because it doesn’t bring much as a search engine per se. Known to be fueled by Bing but after all many outsider engines are, including DuckDuckGo which I use the most.
In fact I abandoned Qwant because its display always changes (I CSS modify all search engines I use because they all follow the Google look which is to have an excessively narrow results column) and because its logic is cumbersome : if you don’t have a cookie to remember where on Qwant to land default is self-promotional page. The thing is complicated : basically IMO a search engine must run flawlessly without extra options unless they be inherent of the engine’s features, such as engines to choose in a meta-search engine, consequently without cookies.
If I want in-depth search results I use a ‘SearchXNG Metasearch’ instance (at this time [https://searx.mha.fi/] but there are quite a few. It provides search results from the engines you include in its options, by default I think Google is always selected). Works nicely.
Back to Qwant. It’s not because I’m French myself that I’ll promote blindly a French company. IMO Qwant is struggling, which is not a vice but a virtue when correct decisions are taken to advance, which is not IMO Qwant’s reality. To summarize : results are not exceptional, layout is an ever changing soup, and as for anonymity I have no clue but one thing is sure : there are several search engines which provide good results and guarantee privacy. SearXNG may depend of the instance given it’s a community project and therefor as such includes the best and “less best” :)
I have startpage as openings page. However it takes very long at starting ff (or other browser) to finish the opening page. With Duckduck it is the same.
Do you have any advise to prevent this very long opning time?
I have tried SearchXNG in the past, I could not set it to my liking and it is confusing me.
@Anonymous,
On Firefox I set about:blank as @Tom suggested. On Edge for the home page and new tabs I use the ExagonTab extension. Maybe it’s useful for you.
https://i.postimg.cc/DwPcYsm3/Exagon-Tab.png
@Anonymous,
Have you tried setting about:blank as your Firefox homepage (about:preferences#home)?
Do you use the ‘uBlock Origin’ etension? uBO delays the opening of pages until it is fully loaded, but local pages such as about:blank normally open immediately
If delay persists, maybe have a look at about:preferences#privacy > History > Clear history when Firefox closes > Settings.
Personally I have a local html file as homepage and it opens immediately.
Let me know.
Addition to my reply a few minutes ago.
If I set the openings page to FF-standard, the FF-opening is instant, so without any delay.
If I set it to Google, then the slow opening is again present.
Is setting a different opening-page than FF-standard, a punishement from FF?
@Anonymous,
No such thing as a FF “punishment”. What may happen as always are consequences of tweaks, but here we’re dealing with a Firefox option which is to choose its homepage.
You wrote in your previous comment, “Disabling all ff-extensions made a difference.”
Yet, “It is not only in FF that opening Startpage.com is slow, it is also in Chrome and Edge”
But, “The common between those browsers is that I have them all with about the same extensions”
From here it does seem that the issue is related to at least an extension present in all browsers you mentioned, that’s what plain logical deduction leads to.
Looks like you’ll have to dig into those extensions, don’t you think? Halves by halves or the “take a chance” approach which is to disable extension(s) you consider as more likely to be problematic. Greater the number of items more pertinent the 1st approach is. I have over 60 extensions myself and I remember the hassle of testing them to find the “guilty” one. Another way to proceed is to open a new (Firefox) profile and install the extensions one by one until you encounter the issue … that’s what I had done, some time ago, until I found the culprit after having had the worst words, those which embarrass the devil himself, travel in my mind :) Patience, organized and rational experimenting, and the solution will appear. Forgot to mention ; replacing my bad words attitude by the zen attitude together with a deep breath made things easier.
Thanks for your advice.
I have tested a blank openings page, it is a little faster, but not impressive. Setting a local internet-site as openings-page did make a little difference.
I have set ff to delete anything at closing.
However I have a lot of extensions, a.o. uBO with all libraries active (excluding languages).
Disabling the uBO libraries made no difference. Disabling all ff-extensions made a difference.
It is not only in FF that opening Startpage.com is slow, it is also in Chrome and Edge. The common between those browsers is that I have them all with about the same extensions. So I am going to try which extensions are attributing the most to the slow opening.
Everything is absolutely fine with FF, as always it has been and as always it will be.
Even if you have a single little complaint about something you dislike.
Just remember to post with caution, fanboys are watching you.
Thanks for the article.
:]
Except Firesux has been a POS since 2011, almost dead with dwindling userbase and funding, outdated rendering engine and components.
Blink browsers have been better since 2008.
Except Firesux has been a POS since 2011, almost dead with dwindling userbase and funding, outdated rendering engine and components.
In your other posts you gloated about all the Google money they were getting, now the money is dwindling and almost dead?
I know you love Big Tech and big government because it fits with your far left agenda, but Big Tech companies censor conservatives far more than any obscure open source browser, but I guess that’s what you want so you can push your woke ideology.
Of course he is a liberal, look at the way he spells wynd.
@Allwynd, I agree that the engine of FF could be better in some ways, mainly to render everything with the best compatibility as possible. In other words, a fallback engine when something wasn’t rendered as expected due to some errors of the website code or something. I don’t kniw how to explain it better, sorry.
Are you implying there’s something you dislike about Firefox John G.?
How dare you.
To the torture chamber.
@Andy Prough, LOL, thanks for your fine sense of humor.
However, now being serious, tonight I tried Firefox 124 and I didn’t dislike it at all.
I left FF 124 installed in my W11 computer, and I will maintain ESR in Ubuntu.
Probably it’s a good idea to have both branches to test official sites.
Thanks for the review, Martin :)
Upgraded Firefox 115.8.0 ESR to 115.9.0 ESR
Still waiting for latest Release Notes. I often point it out but I’ll point it out once again (all with me now, moody or rock ‘n’ roll) :
Why, warum, pourquoi are Firefox release Notes always so long to be published?!
Warum, sag, warum (‘Sag Warum’, a German hit from the seventies, interpreted by ‘Camillo’ !)
Be happy :)
The same goes for Brave browser, on my Ubuntu machine it comes in a snap package and as soon the machine starts to work heavily in the background I check the process list and see Snap updater is at it again and it can go on for hours and some times it starts doing something in advance days before an update, but visiting Brave release note web site there’s no info, not even after the update has been done, and considering snap is like a virus in the background with very invasive behavior and rights it’s difficult to kill the process, also the browser starts to become buggy and some extensions loses their functionality, it’s creepy as f*.
Snap is generally a completely broken abomination, that is primarily characterized by storage bloat and CPU consumption.
While it was imho in principle a great idea, the practical realization of it, that has been put out by Canonical is just a total mess, with catastrophic impacts on the system. You should stay away from snaps at all costs, if you want a lean, working system.
Eg I never had to use snaps for Firefox.
Just install it once as a normal package from Mozilla.org (doesn’t even need to be installed, just unpacked) and thereafter use auto-update.
Annotation: Like snap, I also hate systemd, but that (in contrast to snap) at least works, it just violates the basic philosophy of how a Unix system should work. Snap in contrast is just junk.