Mozilla Firefox 96.0 release: here is what is new

Firefox 96.0's release date is January 11, 2022. It is the first Firefox Stable release of 2022. The new Firefox version includes some improvements and fixes, including security fixes.

firefox 96.0

All other Firefox channels are upgraded around the same time. Firefox ESR moves to Firefox 91.5 ESR, Firefox Beta and Dev editions to version 97, and Firefox Nightly to version 98.

Check out our release overview of Firefox 95 here. Mozilla released two smaller updates for Firefox 95, Firefox 95.0.1 and Firefox 95.0.2, that addressed issues in the browser.

Executive Summary

Firefox 96 is a security update.
Firefox changes how cookies are handled that come from the same domain but use different schemes, e.g. HTTPS and HTTP. The sites are considered different "with respect to the cookie SameSite directive".

Firefox 96.0 download and update

Firefox 96.0 will be pushed out to all systems on January 11, 2022, provided that the automatic updating functionality has not been turned off.

Users may select Firefox Menu > Help > About Firefox to display the currently installed version and to run a manual check for updates. Updates that are discovered during the check are downloaded and installed automatically.

Here are the links to the official download repositories.

Firefox 96.0 new features and improvements

Changes in cookie handling

Firefox 96.0 enforces the Same-Site=lax cookie policy by default now. It is one of three available values for the Same-Site policy and blocks cookies from being sent in third-party contexts. Firefox will use the lax value automatically for sites that don't specify a Same-Site directive.

Mozilla explains:

Cookies are not sent on normal cross-site subrequests (for example to load images or frames into a third party site), but are sent when a user is navigating to the origin site (i.e., when following a link).

This is the default cookie value if SameSite has not been explicitly specified in recent browser versions (see the "SameSite: Defaults to Lax" feature in the Browser Compatibility).

Other changes

The main-thread load has been reduced "significantly" according to Mozilla.
Improvements to noise-suppression and auto-gain-control, and "slight improvements in echo-cancellation".

Developer Changes

The hwb() function for use as a CSS color value has been implemented.
Firefox now provides support for the color-scheme property
The counter-reset property now supports the reversed() function for creating reversed CSS counters, which are intended for numbering elements in descending order.
navigator.canShare() is now supported on Android
The Web Locks API is enabled by default.
Image encoder support has been added for the WebP image format.

Enterprise changes

Mozilla fixes a bug that affected the downloading of files to mapped network drives. Additionally, Mozilla Firefox is now hiding the Windows SSO option in preferences if the feature is not supported by the installed version of Windows.

Engineers fixed three policy issues and added two policies that modify the new default Same-Site=lax cookie policy.

AutoLaunchProtocolsFromOrigins errors were not displayed properly.
SearchEngines | Add updates search engines when attributes are changed.
SuggestURLTemplate in SearchEngines | Add did not work correctly.
New LegacySameSiteCookieBehaviorEnabled policy to set the global default handling to the legacy behavior.
New LegacySameSiteCookieBehaviorEnabledForDomainList policy that allows administrators to specify a domain list for which cookies should be handled using the legacy behavior.

Bug Fixes

Command-clicking links in Gmail opens these links in a new tab.
Fixes a video issue that saw SSRC dropped.
Fixes a WebRTC downgrade screen sharing resolution.
Fixes video quality degradation issues on "certain sites".
Detached video has been disabled on Mac OS in fullscreen to "avoid some issues with corruption, brightness changes, missing subtitles, and high cpu usage".

Known Issues

None listed.