Mozilla Firefox 8 Released, Includes Critical Security Fixes

Mozilla released Firefox 8 today, in keeping with the rapid release schedule,

As expected when a version update is released, you may find that many of your favorite add-ons are not compatible with the new release.  Use Add-on Compatibility Reporter to test and report on your favorite add-ons in version 8.

Security Updates

The following security updates are included in the release of Firefox 8, in which MFSA 2011-48, MFSA 2011-49 and MFSA 2011-52 are rated Critical, with the other three updates rated High.

• MFSA 2011-52 Code execution via NoWaiverWrapper
• MFSA 2011-51 Cross-origin image theft on Mac with integrated Intel GPU
• MFSA 2011-50 Cross-origin data theft using canvas and Windows D2D
• MFSA 2011-49 Memory corruption while profiling using Firebug
• MFSA 2011-48 Miscellaneous memory safety hazards (rv:8.0)
• MFSA 2011-47 Potential XSS against sites using Shift-JIS

What's New

The Release Notes listed the following new features in version 8:

• Add-ons installed by third party programs are now disabled by default
• Added a one-time add-on selection dialog to manage previously installed add-ons
  
• Added Twitter to the search bar for select locales. Additional locale support will be added in the future
  
• Added a preference to load tabs on demand, improving start-up time when windows are restored
  
• Improved performance and memory handling when using
  
• Added CORS support for cross-domain textures in WebGL
  
• Added support for HTML5 context menus
  
• Added support for insertAdjacentHTML
  
• Improved CSS hyphen support for many languages
  
• Improved WebSocket support
  
• Fixed several stability issues
  
• Fixed several security issues
  

The upgrade to Firefox 8 will be offered through the browser update mechanism.  However, as the upgrade includes critical security updates, it is recommended that the update be applied as soon as possible.  To get the update now, select Help, About Firefox, Check for Updates.

References

• Common questions after updating Firefox
• Mozilla Firefox Release Notes
• Security Advisories

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