14 DAY TRIAL // Mozilla officially announced today the release of its Firefox 60 web browser as the next ESR (Extended Support Release) series for all supported platforms on the desktop, including Linux, Mac, Windows, and Android.
Firefox 60 "Quantum" was launched today as the next ESR (Extended Support Release) series of the widely-used open-source and cross-platform web browser, ready for deployments in enterprise environments thanks to a new policy engine, as well as Group Policy support that helps IT professionals easily configure the browser using a cross-platform JSON file or Windows Group Policy.
"Thousands of large and small businesses, universities, and government agencies have relied on Firefox for years. Many of these organizations have already been beta testing Firefox Quantum for Enterprise, and are planning to roll out the new browser in the weeks ahead," said Mozilla. "With Firefox, organizations can deploy the standard Rapid Release (RR) or the Extended Support Release (ESR)."
Firefox 60 introduces USB token authentication, new Tab/Firefox Home
We already took a look at some of the new features implemented by Mozilla in the Firefox 60 "Quantum" release, which include Quantum CSS support for rendering the browser's UI, support for the Web Authentication API to allow website authentication using USB tokens like YubiKey, support for the Occitan (oc) locale, and a new shortcut (F9) for accessing Reader View on Windows systems.
Now Mozilla revealed all of the new features of Firefox 60, which include redesigned Cookies and Site Storage section in Preferences to make it more easy for users to control third-party cookies, a new "Title Bar" option in the Customize panel for Linux users to display or hide page titles in the bar at the top of the web browser, as well as improved WebRTC audio playback and performance on Linux platforms.
On top of that, Firefox 60 adds a bunch of enhancements to the New Tab and Firefox Home pages, among which we can mention a more responsive layout targeted at wide-screen displays, more control over the way content and sections are ordered, support for websites saved to Pocket in the Highlights section, and implementation of Pocket Sponsored Stories for a limited numbers of users in the United States.
This new Quantum release also enhances the camera privacy indicators by automatically turning off your webcam's light when video recording is disabled and turning it back on when it's resumed. With the Firefox 60 release, Symantec-issued TLS (Transport Layer Security) certificates released before June 1, 2016, are no longer trusted, and bookmarks no longer support multiple keywords for the same URL, unless there's different POST data in the request.
Several security issues have been addressed as well in Firefox 60, which also brings multiple enhancements to web developers, detailed by Mozilla in a seprate article here. Firefox 60 started rolling out to Windows and Mac users via OTA (Over-the-Air) updates, and it's available to download for Linux users through our web portal. Being an ESR release, Firefox 60 will be supported for a couple of years.