Microsoft released .NET Framework 4.8, updating its software framework with new and improved features. The update is available for Windows 7 Service Pack 1, Windows 8.1 and Windows 10 as it comes standard on the May 2019 OS update.
Version 4.8 includes an improvement of the JIT through bug fixes and code generation-based performance optimization that was based on .NET Core 2.1.
On the security front, NGEN images get rid of writable and executable sections to reduce the surface area susceptible to attacks. 4.8 also includes antimalware scanning for all assemblies which is a feature that wasn’t available in previous iterations. Additional improvements include updates to the Zlib native compression library and service behavior enhancements for WCF.
4.8 offers three new features for Windows Forms that improve communication of application data to visually impaired users. These include UIA Live Regions, which notifies users of a text change on a control separate from where the user is working, UIA Notification Events in which the user can create a UIA event that the Narrator then announces out loud, and ToolTips on keyboard access, which enables a keyboard user to trigger a control’s tooltip by focusing the control using a Tab key or arrow keys with or without modifier keys.
The SHA256Managed class and the other managed cryptography classes now redirect cryptographic operations to a system cryptography library by default to comply with FIPS.
The .NET Framework has been around since 2000 and since then, Microsoft came out with a successful open-sourced, cross-platform .NET Core in 2016 that lets users of Mac OS and Linux join in on the app-building action.
