More than a month after Mozilla came out with Firefox 32, the company has updated the web browser for Android, Windows, Linux, and Mac platforms, bumping it to version 33.0. Aside from bug fixes, the update also brings some new features as well as performance improvements.
One of the notable features of the update is that Firefox for Android now lets you send supported videos straight from Web pages you visit in the web browser to streaming-enabled TVs via connected devices like Roku and Chromecast. When you play a video in the smartphone browser, you'll now see the 'send to device' icon in the video playback controls and the URL bar, tapping on which brings up a list of connected Roku or Chromecast devices that are on the same WiFi network. Pick a device and you're good to go.
"You can choose the content you want to view in your living room and can play, pause and close videos directly from the Media Control Bar in Firefox for Android", the company said in a blog post. "This appears at the bottom of the screen on your Android phone when a video is being sent and stays visible as long as the video is playing, even if you change tabs or visit new Web pages".
In addition, Firefox 33 for Android also includes an option to clear data when quitting the browser app, undo a closed tab, list recently closed tabs, close all tabs at once, and more.
As for the desktop version, Firefox 33 now supports proprietary H.264 video codec for WebRTC-based video chat (H.264 videos still won't play natively), thanks to a collaboration with Cisco, which has agreed to distribute OpenH264, a free H.264 codec plugin that the web browser requires.
In addition, the desktop version also boasts an improved search experience, slimmer and faster JavaScript, search suggestions on the Start (about:home) and new tab (about:newtab) pages, support for connecting to HTTP proxy over HTTPS, and more.
The desktop version is available for download here, while the Android version is slowly rolling out on Google Play.