Mozilla will release Firefox 58.0.1 in the coming 24-hour period to address a critical issue on Windows machines that causes page load failures in the browser.

The update is not out yet at the time of writing but it will soon be released via the web browser's automatic update functionality. You can run manual checks for updates in Firefox by clicking on the menu icon and selecting Help > About Firefox from the menu that opens.

Users who prefer to download new versions instead can do so on the Mozilla website after the release as well.

Mozilla Firefox 58.0.1

The preliminary release notes list one issue as fixed in Firefox 58.0.1.

When using certain non-default security policies on Windows (for example with Windows Defender Exploit Protection or Webroot security products), Firefox 58.0 would fail to load pages.

Bug 1433065, Firefox 58 is not loading any pages (including about: pages), is the main tracking bug for the issue. The user who opened the bug on Bugzilla describes the issue as Firefox not loading any web pages, including local ones, and showing a white background instead.

He reported that certain exploit mitigation settings would cause pages to not display correctly in Firefox. Validate Stack Integrity (StackPivot), Validate API Invocation (Caller Check), Simulate Execution (SimExec), and Import Address Filtering (IAF) caused the white page issue in Firefox while Export Address Filtering (EAF) crashed the browser instead.

The number of users affected by the issue is unclear but it appears to be large enough to warrant a bug fix release.

Firefox 58.0.1 has two unresolved issues which affect Firefox 58.0 as well:

• Users running Firefox for Windows over a Remote Desktop Connection (RDP) may find that audio playback is disabled due to increased security restrictions.
• Users running certain screen readers may experience performance issues and are advised to use Firefox ESR until performance issues are resolved in an upcoming future release.