Firefox 16 Is Temporarily Suspended Due To Security Vulnerability

Yesterday, Mozilla launched Firefox 16 to much fanfare. A little more than 24 hours later, it pulled the installer from its website, citing a security vulnerability that was identified. According to the notice published by Mozilla, the installer will be available again tomorrow, in addition to the automatic update that will fix the issue for those who have already instead it.

According to Mozilla, the vulnerability could potentially allow a malicious website to pinpoint the websites users have visited, and gain access to the URL or its parameters. Per the notice Mozilla published, the company has received "no indication that this vulnerability is currently being exploited in the wild." Users who have already downloaded Firefox 16 are encouraged to either rollback to version 15.0.1, or to avoid using the browser until after the fix is released.

Firefox 16 offers several new features, most of which are aimed at developers. One such feature is the Developer Command Line, which provides keyboard control over the Developer Tools. Other features include CSS3 Animations, Image Values, IndexedDB, Transitions, and Transforms.

New features for the average consumer includes VoiceOver support for Mac OS X users and web app support for all three operating system versions of the browser. The Firefox app for Android will include a new reader mode, which allows users to hide browser elements for distraction-free reading. You can check out all the release notes here.

[via Mozilla]