Mozilla's recently released Firefox 71, comes with Native MP3 Decoding for Windows, MacOS and Linux; which followed the expiry of the patents for the long-outdated lossy compression MP3 audio file format.
While the native MP3 decoding is such a big deal, because Firefox browser would not have to rely on third-party software anymore to play MP3 contents, such as podcasts right on the browser. And free software projects that are based in countries where the software patents is an issue can include the codec, following Firefox example.
Also, there is a new re-designed about:config page where some of the old configuration options which made Firefox such a great browser can still be found; although most users never bothered to look at the old options, but Mozilla has revamped the layout of the about:config page, recoding it in HTML5.
The latest Firefox release also comes with lots of security-related fixes, including memory-related fixes, which involve bugs that showed evidence of corruption in the memory and exploitable to run arbitrary code.
Additionally, Firefox 71 offers a new "kiosk mode" for Windows which may be pretty useful to run Firefox pointed at captive intranet web portal on special-purpose device, which can be activated by launching the browser with a -kiosk option. Albeit, the -kiosk option does work also on the GNU/Linux version, but launches a rather useless Firefox full-screen.
And there is a rather catch up feature, Picture-in-Picture (PiP) mode which is already available on Google Chrome, allowing video to be replayed in “pop out” window that floats on top of the normal windows and can be adjusted on the screen. Firefox for Windows will now allow users to get support for the Picture in Picture mode with this latest release.
You can get the new features using either Ubuntu, Zorin OS, Peppermint, Linux Mint et al, by simply upgrading your Firefox browser through the system’s update manager tool or by downloading Firefox 71 directly from the Mozilla website.
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