Mozilla has switched Firefox to a rapid release development cycle which means new versions will come more frequently. The non-profit organization has promised to push out a new stable build every six weeks.

The latest Mozilla Firefox Beta is now available for testing on Windows, Mac, Linux and Android. This beta includes performance enhancements that improve the browsing experience for users and enable developers to create faster Web apps and websites.

What's New

New:

  • All plug-ins, with the exception of recent Flash plug-ins, are defaulted to 'click to play'
  • Password manager now supports script-generated password fields
  • Updates can now be performed by Windows users without write permissions to Firefox install directory (requires Mozilla Maintenance Service)
  • Support for H.264 on Linux if the appropriate gstreamer plug-ins are installed

Changed:

  • Support for MP3 decoding on Windows XP, completing MP3 support across Windows OS versions
  • CSP implementation now supports multiple policies, including the case of both an enforced and Report-Only policy, per the spec

Developer:

  • Social API now supports Social Bookmarking for multiple providers through its SocialMarks functionality (see MDN docs)
  • There is no longer a prompt when websites use appcache
  • Support for the CSS image orientation property
  • New App Manager allows you to deploy and debug HTML5 webapps on Firefox OS phones and the Firefox OS Simulator
  • IndexedDB can now be used as a "optimistic" storage area so it doesn't require any prompts and data is stored in a pool with LRU eviction policy, in short temporary storage

Fixed:

  • When displaying a standalone image, Firefox matches the EXIF orientation information contained within the JPEG image (298619)
  • Improved page load times due to no longer decoding images that aren't visible (847223)