Firefox 96 Yields Less Load On The Main Thread, WebP Encoder For Canvas

Firefox 96.0 is officially shipping today as the first update of 2022 for this open-source web browser.

Firefox 96.0 has "significantly" reduced the amount of load placed on the browser's main thread and there is also "significant" improvements in noise suppression and auto-gain-control and improvements in echo cancellation. In addition to that performance work, there are also WebRTC improvements, an improved cookie policy to reduce the likelihood of Cross-Site Request Forgery (CSRF) attacks, video quality degradation fixes, and other fixes.

Over on developer.mozilla.org are some of the web developer changes with Firefox 96 including CSS color value function hwb() support for specifying the hue/whiteness/blackness, support for the CSS color-scheme property, the Web Locks API is enabled by default, image encoder support for WebP for exporting HTML5 canvas elements, and other additions.

While awaiting the formal announcement today from Mozilla, Firefox 96.0 can be downloaded right now from the Mozilla.org server.

In other Firefox Linux-related news, Linux Mint announced on Monday they signed a partnership with Mozilla. Financial details were not disclosed but Linux Mint's Firefox build will be changing its default start page, the default search engines will change to Mozilla search partners, and other modifications for Mozilla.