A new Firefox for Android Beta is now available for download and testing. This beta has a redesigned look that blends in with the Android user interface, performance enhancements and support for third-party plugins like Flash for a better mobile browsing experience.
Firefox for Android Beta has all of the features you know and love like Firefox Sync, add-ons and tabbed browsing, plus a new Awesome Screen and enhancements to startup and response time, graphics performance and panning and zooming.
We are always working on a beta here at Mozilla, but this one is special because we’ve done a lot of extra work to add features, improve performance and address things that make mobile browsing faster and easier.
New Firefox for Android Beta start page
We need your help testing everything from the faster startup and response times to compatibility for specific websites and graphics performance. This beta uses hardware acceleration to improve performance with your favorite Web apps, games or photos. As a beta tester you may experience crashes. If you experience a crash or a website that doesn’t perform well in Firefox for Android Beta, please file a bug here.
Firefox for Android Beta supports a wide range of Android phones from Android Ice Cream Sandwich 4.0 all the way back to Android Froyo 2.2. This beta update is only offered for Android phones and in English at this time, but we’ll add more languages and deliver a new beta for tablets soon.
We need your help as we continue to refine the beta and get the new Firefox for Android ready for the world, so take the beta for a drive on your favorite websites and please file a bug if you have any problems.
Editor’s note: Sid Stamm recently posted about HTTPS Google Search. The full post is included below:
Now in Aurora: Secure Google Searches are default. In Aurora when you search using the location bar, search box, or the right-click menu, your search will be sent to Google through a secure (HTTPS) connection. You won’t notice a difference in how you search, but your Google search suggestions and search results will be presented through a secure web site.
Enabling HTTPS for these searches shields our users from network infrastructure that may be gathering data about the users or modifying/censoring their search results. Additionally, using HTTPS helps providers like Google remove information from the referrer string. While Google users may expect Google to know what they are searching for, Firefox users may not be aware these search terms are often transmitted to sites they visit when they click on items in the search results; enabling HTTPS search helps sites like Google strip this information from the HTTP referrer string, putting the user better in control of when and to whom their interests are shared.
Encrypting our users’ searches is our next step into giving users better control over their data online. Enabling HTTPS for Google searches helps Firefox users maintain better control over who sees things they search for — queries that are often sensitive. We’re excited to see this improvement in our upcoming releases now that we, with Google’s help, have been able to provide our users a secure and responsive secure search.
Try these new experimental features now and start testing. Download the latest Firefox Aurora and provide feedback. Feedback on these new features help us determine what makes it to beta and final releases.
A new Firefox Beta for Windows, Mac and Linux is now available for download and testing. This beta optimizes features to make it easier to get where you want on the Web.
What’s New in Firefox Beta for Users:
Redesigned Home Page: The Home Page now gives you easy access to Bookmarks, History, Settings, Add-ons, Downloads and Sync Preferences with one-click shortcuts.
Home Page
Redesigned New Tab page: When you open a new tab, you can easily get to your most recently and frequently visited sites. You can also customize, add or remove thumbnails to get to where you want to go in one click.
New Tab page
Tabs on Demand: Firefox loads tabs on demand when you restore a previous session, which makes it faster to restart Firefox windows with many tabs.
What’s New in Firefox Beta for Web Developers:
SPDY Support: Firefox Beta now supports SPDY by default. SPDY is a protocol designed as a successor to HTTP that reduces the amount of time it takes for websites to load. SPDY encrypts all communication with SSL, which makes browsing more secure. Users will notice quicker page load speeds on sites that support SPDY networking.
Developer Tool Updates: Firefox Beta includes a number of improvements to Web Developer Tools. Page Inspector now allows you to lock in CSS pseudo-classes on inspected page elements and Style Editor now saves CSS files loaded via file:// URLs without prompting to make the workflow for experimenting with CSS much quicker.
The latest Firefox Aurora is now available, including early-stage features like New Tab, a redesigned default Home Page and Awesome Bar Auto-Complete.
New Tab Feature
What’s New in Firefox Aurora:
When opening a new tab, users are now presented with thumbnails of their most recent and most frequented pages.
The redesigned Home Page provides a central start location where users can access their Bookmarks, History, Settings, Add-ons, Downloads and Sync Preferences. The new Home Page is an early stage feature; expect more to come in future releases!
The Awesome Bar now completes URLs as you type them.
A new Firefox Beta for Windows, Mac and Linux is now available for download and testing. This beta makes updating to new versions of Firefox easier and includes more than 85 improvements to in-browser developer tools.
What’s New in Firefox Beta for Users:
Improved Update Process: We’ve been working to improve the Firefox update experience. Firefox Beta now simplifies the process for Windows users by removing the control dialogue (UAC) pop-up from the update experience. Once a user gives explicit permission to Firefox on their first installation, they will not be prompted again for subsequent releases.
Media Controls Refresh: Firefox Beta now includes sleeker HTML5 media controls to enhance the in-browser video and audio playback experience, including full-screen mode.
What’s New in Firefox Beta for Web Developers:
Developer Tool Improvements: This beta includes more than 85 improvements to Firefox’s built-in developer tools, including updates to the Web Console, Scratchpad, Style Editor, Page Inspector, Style Inspector, HTML View and Page Inspector 3D View.
Try these new experimental features now and start testing. Download the latest Firefox Aurora and provide feedback. Feedback on these new features help us determine what makes it to beta and final releases.
A new Firefox Beta for Windows, Mac and Linux is now available for download and testing. This beta adds new in-product developer tools that make it easier to visualize page elements and updates Firefox Sync capabilities to let users sync add-ons across computers.
What’s New in Firefox Beta for Web Developers:
Page Inspector 3D View: Tilt is a new WebGL-based website visualization tool that illustrates the relationship between various parts of a websites and their ancestors in 3D. The Tilt 3D view is integrated with the Page Inspector tool and is particularly useful when searching through problems in the HTML structure. Read more about Tilt in the Hacks blog post.
Style Editor: Firefox Beta includes the new Style Editor tool, which gives developers complete freedom to edit CSS files for a page with live updates in the browser. Developers can then save the CSS files to desk when they are done.
SPDY Support: Firefox Beta now supports SDPY. SPDY is a transport protocol designed as a successor to HTTP that reduces the amount of time it takes for websites to load. This improves page load times and reduces server load because headers are compressed and fewer connections are used. All pages are loaded on SSL with SPDY, making browsing more secure. To enable SPDY, go to about:config. Search for network.http.spdy.enabled and set it to “true.”
What’s New in Firefox Beta for Users:
Add-on Sync: Users have the option to sync add-ons across platforms so they can pick up where they left off on different computers. Users can enable this feature in the Preferences window on the Sync tab.
Migration Tool Update: New Firefox users can utilize the migration tool to bring data from Internet Explorer, Safari and now Chrome. This Firefox Beta update adds the ability to import data and preferences from Google Chrome so users can easily get started on Firefox with all of their favorite bookmarks, history, cookies and profiles. More features will be coming in later releases.
The new Firefox Aurora for Android update includes a new native Android interface that we need your help testing. Users will experience a faster start-up time, new design, improved start page and more. This Firefox Aurora update also includes Flash support. Look for further Firefox Aurora updates soon that will add features like Firefox Sync, additional add-ons support and more.
We need our adventurous group of Firefox Aurora users to help us test these new features and file bugs or provide feedback as we continue to improve performance and features. For tablet users who want to keep using the new optimized tablet UI, please download Firefox Beta.
A new Firefox Beta for Windows, Mac, Linux and Android is now available for download and testing. This beta adds new built-in developer tools that make it easier and faster to create and modify amazing websites and Web apps. This beta also adds enhancements that make Firefox Sync easier to setup and pair across desktop and mobile devices.
What’s New in Firefox Beta for Web Developers:
Full Screen API: Developers can create Web applications that leverage the entire screen. The Full Screen API works with any HTML content, enabling developers to build entertaining and compelling Web video and game experiences. You can get more information in this blog post.
Page Inspector: Page Inspector makes it fast and easy for developers to test the design, style, font, color and page positioning of their website. Developers can see the HTML and CSS rules applied to any selected page element. This makes it easy to navigate through different page elements while viewing the HTML document structure for the page.
Style Inspector: Developers can use the Style Inspector to see the CSS properties applied to any selected page element and easily change the values to experiment with new looks. You can get more information in this blog post.
CSS3 3D-Transforms: Developers can create two-dimensional elements that animate and transform into 3D using HTML5 without the need for third-party plugins. You can get more details in this blog post.
Anti-aliasing for WebGL: Now 3D WebGL content will have edges that blend smoothly, especially with games and animations.
Scratchpad with Orion Code Editor: The developer Scratchpad adds the Orion code editor, allowing developers to edit more than plain text. The Orion code editor provides syntax highlighting and other great features and makes it easier to write JavaScript.
What’s New in Firefox Beta for Users:
Add-ons Compatible by Default: Firefox updates are smoother and easier because incompatible add-ons are automatically disabled and all other add-ons will default to compatible (except binary add-ons). We need your help testing the update process to make sure that incompatible add-ons are properly disabled. You can read more details in this blog post or file a bug.
Enhanced Firefox Sync: Firefox Sync is enhanced with an easier setup process so you can pair your Android phone, tablet or any Firefox-enabled device without needing to be at your desktop computer.
