Mozilla Firefox Version 81.0 Released With Security Updates

Mozilla sent Firefox Version 81.0 to the release channel today.  The update includes ten security updates of which four (4) are rated moderate high and three (3) are rated moderate.

At the time of this posting, there is no update for Firefox ESR Version 68.12 and based on the Rapid Release Calendar, it appears it may have reached EOL and the current ESR Version is 78.3, available from here.

High

• CVE-2020-15663: Downgrade attack on the Mozilla Maintenance Service could have resulted in escalation of privilege

• #CVE-2020-15673: Memory safety bugs fixed in Firefox 81 and Firefox ESR 78.3
• #CVE-2020-15670: Memory safety bugs fixed in Firefox 80 and Firefox ESR 78.2
• #CVE-2020-15675: Use-After-Free in WebGL 
  

 

Moderate

• #CVE-2020-15677: Download origin spoofing via redirect
• #CVE-2020-15676: XSS when pasting attacker-controlled data into a contenteditable element
• #CVE-2020-15678: When recursing through layers while scrolling, an iterator may have become invalid, resulting in a potential use-after-free scenario

 New

• You can pause and play audio or video in Firefox right from your keyboard or headset, giving you easy access to control your media when in another Firefox tab, another program, or even when your computer is locked.
• In addition to our default, dark and light themes, with this release, Firefox introduces the Alpenglow theme: a colorful appearance for buttons, menus, and windows. You can update your Firefox themes under settings or preferences.
• For our users in the US and Canada, Firefox can now save, manage, and auto-fill credit card information for you, making shopping on Firefox ever more convenient. To ensure the smoothest experience, this will be rolling out to users gradually.
• Firefox supports AcroForm, which will soon allow you to fill in, print, and save supported PDF forms and the PDF viewer also has a new fresh look.
• Our users in Austria, Belgium and Switzerland using the German version of Firefox will now see Pocket recommendations in their new tab featuring some of the best stories on the web. If you don’t see them, you can turn on Pocket articles in your new tab by following these steps. In addition to Firefox’s new tab, Pocket is also available as an app on iOS and Android.

Fixed

• We’ve fixed a bug for users of language packs where the default language was reset to English after Firefox updates.
• Browser native HTML5 audio/video controls received several important accessibility fixes:
• Audio/video controls remain accessible to screen readers even when they are temporarily hidden visually.
• Audio/video elapsed and total time are now accessible to screen readers where they weren't previously.
• Various unlabelled controls are now labelled making them identifiable to screen readers.
• Screen readers no longer intrusively report progress information unless the user requests it.

Changed

• You will soon find Picture-in-Picture more easily on all the videos you watch with new iconography.
• The bookmarks toolbar is now automatically revealed once bookmarks are imported into Firefox, making it easier to find your most important websites.
• We have expanded our supported file types - .xml, .svg, and .webp - so files you’ve downloaded can be opened right in Firefox.

References

• Common questions after updating Firefox
• Security Updates
• Release Notes
• Rapid Release Calendar

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