♞ Coming up on 9TO5Linux ♞
And Firefox 99 is already available for download before the official release.
Check out the news and see how to install on Linux.
Mozilla Firefox is the default browser on Ubuntu and other Linux systems, and generally,
the latest version of Firefox is available as a security update on all supported versions
of major Linux distributions shortly after a few hours of Mozilla's announcement, to
the light of its users .
Now, Mozilla's open-source, cross-platform browser Firefox 99 is now available for download
ahead of its official release on April 5, 2022.
Firefox 99 comes with good news for Linux users as this release brings GTK overlay scrollbars
for a more modern look.
This means that the scrollbars will now appear thinner by default and appear larger to allow
you to manually drag them with your mouse cursor when hovering over them.
They also disappear after one second if no movement is detected.
However, GTK overlay scrollbars are still not enabled by default, so you will have to
go to the Advanced Settings page by typing about:configin the address bar, looking for
the option, widget.gtk.overlay-scrollbars.enabledand setting it to truedouble-clicking it.
This release also strengthens the Linux sandbox by restricting access to the X Window System
(X11) to processes exposed to web content.
Users using Firefox Snap should be happy with this new security feature.
Also for Linux systems, Firefox 99 adds initial support for the Web MIDI API, which requires
a site-specific add-on to enable it on your webpage.
Here, the term “Initial” means that some limitations are present, such as the fact
that device hot-plug detection is absent in this version, although it should work on most
web pages.
Other than that, Firefox 99 appears to allow users to search for text with or without diacritics
in the PDF viewer, as well as toggle the 'Narrate' feature in ReaderMode by pressing the keyboard
shortcut 'n'.
In the scheduled time, Mozilla is asking for the community's help to test the Firefox 100
version, for May 3, 2022, for site compatibility with the three-digit version number.
You can do this by enabling the new Firefox 100 User-Agent String option in the Experimental
section of the Settings page accessible via about:preferences#experimentaland reporting
issues at webcompat.com .
To learn more about this version of Firefox, visit the release note .
How to install Firefox
As stated before, Mozilla will officially announce Firefox 99 on April 5, 2022, but
if you want to test it out on your GNU/Linux distribution, you can download the binaries
for 64-bit or 32-bit systems, as well as the source tarball.
, now from Mozilla's FTP server .
If you installed Firefox from your Linux distribution's software repositories, you'll have to wait
a little longer for the new version to appear there, depending on how quickly your distro's
maintainers will compile the browser from sources, most likely in the end of this week
.
As usual, you can download the latest version of Firefox from the official website, but
as always, I recommend that you update your installations from the stable software repositories
of your favorite Linux distribution when the Firefox packages appear.
To install the stable version of Firefox Flatpak, use this tutorial:
Want to try the Flatpak version of Firefox?
See how!
Linux users from distros that don't support flatpak will have to wait for this version
of Firefox to arrive in the stable software repositories of their favorite Linux distributions.
The new version will be in the official Ubuntu repository and other distros soon.
:: More ::
Mozilla is officially shipping Firefox 99 today and the last feature release before
next month's Firefox 100 milestone.
Firefox 99 is a modest release with several changes this month worth noting for this cross-platform,
open-source web browser.
Firefox 99's Linux sandbox has been strengthened so the processes exposed to web content no
longer have access to any underlying X11 server.
Firefox 99 did enable GTK overlay scrollbar support during nightly and early beta releases
as another Linux-specific improvement but that functionality is disabled for the stable
release.
Firefox 99 also introduces the Web MIDI API for offering some level of web integration
around MIDI protocol devices such as synthesizers, musical keyboards, and other controllers.
Web MIDI offers a simple JavaScript API for interfacing with MIDI devices.
Web MIDI has already been supported by Google Chrome.
Other changes with Firefox 99 include PDF viewer search support with/without diacritics,
toggling the narrate in reader mode functionality via the "n" keyboard shortcut, and user-agent
string testing around compatibility with next month's Firefox 100 (three digit version)
release.
That about wraps up the notable changes of Firefox 99.
Ahead of Mozilla's official announcement, Firefox 99.0 can be downloaded from the Mozilla.org
server.
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