Firefox 26 Beta arrives with new 'Home' screen for Android, 'Click to Play' plug-ins on desktop

[Himanshu Arora]

Mozilla has announced the availability of Firefox 26 Beta for both Android and Desktop users. Among the notable changes is a new 'Home' screen as well as additional search engine options (Yahoo and Bing) for the Android version, and a 'Click to Play' plugin feature along with the new Firefox OS App Manager for the Desktop variant.

Android

Firefox 26 Beta for Android introduces a new Home screen that promises a unified user interface by bringing together all your browsing data and a powerful search experience in a single place. The screen itself consists of swipeable panels that provide easy navigation and quick access to your browsing history, bookmarks, top sites and reading list, while the combined search and URL bar sits atop.

As you'd expect, the Home screen shows up by default when the browser or a new tab is opened, though you can also jump back to it anytime by just tapping on the URL bar.

In addition, the latest beta release of Firefox for Android includes the option to select Bing or Yahoo as the default engine -- though oddly enough this is limited to users in the United States, Canada and France only. To pick your favorite search engine, simply change your preference in the "search settings" menu.

Download Firefox 26 beta for Android | Release Notes

Desktop

Firefox 26 Beta for Desktop finally includes Click to Play enabled by default, letting users choose whether to activate a particular Firefox plugin on a website. The feature should keep users safe from outdated plugins that result in security vulnerabilities. As an exception, the latest version of Flash will remain enabled by default.

In addition, the beta release also includes Firefox OS App Manager, a new developer tool for testing, deploying and debugging HTML5 web apps intended for Mozilla's mobile platform, right from the web browser.

Download Firefox 26 beta for Windows | OS X | Linux | Release Notes | More Info

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https://www.techspot.com/news/54542-firefox-26-beta-arrives-with-new-home-screen-for-android-click-to-play-plug-ins-on-desktop.html

 

[Skidmarksdeluxe]

Firefox is a browser I've tried a couple of times and I've never really come to terms with it but it's not bad at all. I guess I'm just a dyed-in-the-wool Chrome user.

 

[Guest]

Firefox is a browser I've tried a couple of times and I've never really come to terms with it but it's not bad at all. I guess I'm just a dyed-in-the-wool Chrome user.

Same here, Chrome is good browser, I tried it couple of times, but I like Firefox more.

 

[backo]

Firefox is my favorite browser, unfortunately I've been having some issues with it in the passed couple of months and I used it only on my mobile at the moment. Planning on giving it a go again when this version is out of beta.

P.S. Love the iPhonedroid on the picture.

 

[Guest]

Firefox is the best browser, plan and simple. With more capable addons, it is more secure than Chrome, and much more customizable. However I will agree that Chrome still has Firefox beat speed wise. But if you're going to use Chrome, at least get Chromium (which is what Chrome is based off of but without the Google spyware).

 

[Ranger1st]

Iron is a better product then Chrome..

 

[hammer2085]

Optimized builds for Firefox users...

http://fbuild.com/
http://code.google.com/p/lawlietfox/downloads/list
http://forum.palemoon.org/viewforum.php?f=1&sid=b90fc432d675148c705136572e2cffb4
http://www1.plala.or.jp/tete009/en-US/software.html
http://www.overclock.net/t/975626/waterfox-24-0-7-october-firefox-64-bit/0_20
http://sourceforge.net/projects/cyberfox/

I use http://fbuild.com/ its 64bit nightly build I.e. Firefox 27 *&* after this https://blog.mozilla.org/nnethercote/2013/10/01/memshrink-progress-week-117-120/ my memory uasge has decreased by upto 50% considering I have more than 40+ tabs open full day/night.Also see https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6474933

 

[Puiu]

Firefox is the best browser, plan and simple. With more capable addons, it is more secure than Chrome, and much more customizable. However I will agree that Chrome still has Firefox beat speed wise. But if you're going to use Chrome, at least get Chromium (which is what Chrome is based off of but without the Google spyware).

both browsers are good.

-chrome: better speeds when using a lower number of tabs, a bit more responsive, better youtube/google support (who would have guessed it..)

-firefox: better memory manage when using more tabs than usual and less bugs when loading pages, more extensive customization options (from settings to addons), better interface (subjective - I like it more - the buttons/settings tab on chrome are just bad for me), some addons I use at work are more developed on firefox compared to chrome (ex: firebug)

I use them both because both have pro's and con's that complement each other.

PS: I trust mozilla more than google but I'm pretty sure that both do the same things
PS2: I don't know which is more secure, but I do know that firefox is using older code and older addons, but the developers are more trustworthy because of the transparency. be careful of what you do and both browsers have the same security. most security holes are in the brains of the users ^_^