Mozilla began releasing the Firefox 95 browser update for macOS users on December 7. The company claims that this update packs performance and power efficiency improvements, all with a focus on security.
The release notes reveal that Firefox 95 allows for “reduced CPU usage on macOS in Firefox and WindowsServer during event processing.” Power draw for video playback on platforms like Netflix and Amazon Prime Video has also been optimized. For security, the newest update sees Firefox’s transition to using WebAssembly to “isolate potentially buggy code” while adding protection from zero-day vulnerabilities too.
“This technique, which uses WebAssembly to isolate potentially-buggy code, builds on the prototype we shipped last year to Mac and Linux users. Now, we’re bringing that technology to all supported Firefox platforms (desktop and mobile), and isolating five different modules: Graphite, Hunspell, Ogg, Expat and Woff2.
Going forward, we can treat these modules as untrusted code, and — assuming we did it right — even a zero-day vulnerability in any of them should pose no threat to Firefox. Accordingly, we’ve updated our bug bounty program to pay researchers for bypassing the sandbox even without a vulnerability in the isolated library.”
Other improvements include tweaks to the memory allocator, a faster content process startup on macOS, protection from side-channel attacks such as Spectre. The developers acknowledge that some issues remain unresolved. For instance, Command-clicking links in Gmail on macOS won’t still open the
If you are already a Firefox user on mac, you can get the Firefox 95 update from within the browser itself. If you want to experience the new optimizations in Firefox 95, you can also get in on the action by downloading an installer file from the Mozilla website. Firefox makes a strong case for itself as a reliable, feature-rich, and chromium-based alternative to macOS’ preinstalled Safari and the mainstream pick, Google Chrome.
