April 7’s announcement of Firefox 75.0 came just a few days after the release of Firefox 74.0.1, a special version that addresses two critical security vulnerabilities.
Firefox 75.0 features a reworked address bar, and includes fixes for another six security bugs.
The new address bar functionality may trip up some users initially, but it does appear to be an overall improvement. The changes are as follows:
- Searching using the address bar on smaller screens is now optimized, and should be less confusing.
- Clicking the empty address bar, or clicking on an address in the address bar, will now show a list of ‘top sites’. These are the sites you visit most often.
- The address bar is now slightly larger, and expands slightly when clicked. The font is also larger, and suggested URLs are shortened to provide more useful context.
- When entering search terms, Firefox will now suggest additional terms it thinks may be relevant.
- If you start entering a URL that is already open in another tab, Firefox will show a ‘Switch to Tab’ entry in the suggestions.
Depending on your configuration, Firefox will typically update itself in the days following a new release. If you prefer to do this yourself, or you’re not sure which version you have, navigate Firefox’s ‘hamburger’ menu (at the top right) to Help
> About Firefox
. If a newver version is available, you’ll be given the opportunity to install it.