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Firefox 68 with BigInt, Extended Dark Mode, and Curated Extensions

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Firefox 68 was recently released to web users. Firefox 68 supports big integers , expanded Dark Mode, improved extension security and discovery, and more.

Firefox 68 newly supports JavaScript’s new BigInt numeric type. As described on MDN, BigInt is a TC39 stage-3 proposal that provides a way to represent whole numbers larger than 2^53 - 1, which is the largest number JavaScript can reliably represent with the Number primitive. A BigInt is created by appending n to the end of an integer literal — 10n — or by calling the function BigInt().

BigInt enables developers to work accurately with very large numbers. While 2 ** 53 + 1 would erroneously evaluate to 9007199254740992 (the number is odd, thus cannot end with the digit 2), the following 2n ** 53n +1n correctly evaluates to 9007199254740993n. Limitations of these sorts is one reason why Twitter’s JSON API returns Tweet IDs as strings instead of literal numbers.

Additionally, Firefox Dark Mode expands its target area with blackout shades in Firefox Reader View. Firefox 68’s release note provides the explanatory illustration:

Firefox 68 dark mode

Mozilla also provides with Firefox 68 a curated list of high quality, secure extensions via the Recommended Extensions program, to be accessed through the Firefox Add-ons Manager (about:addons).

The Firefox 68 for desktop changelog describes in detail the full list of changes.

Firefox 68 for desktop can be downloaded on Firefox.com. Existing users may upgrade to it automatically. Both Android and iOS users can download from Google Play and Apple’s App Store.

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