Firebug 1.9 Is Now Available

Firebug 1.9, the debugging add-on for Firefox, has been released and is available for Firefox 5 and up. It comes with quite a lot of new features, to be expected since it's a major version update.

One of the new features in Firebug 1.9 is the ability to position Firebug on each of the sides of the browser, which ever is more comfortable for you, unless you prefer to have it in a separate window of course.

Another interesting ability is the possibility of copying full data sets as JSON to the clipboard.

"Firebug allows inspecting JSON responses and copying parts of the JSON tree to the clipboard. Just expand an HTTP request (in the Console or Net panel), select the JSON tab and right click in the tree to get the context menu," Firebug explained.

Firebug now displays the exact position of an error inside the line it occurred in. There is also a new column in the Net panel dubbed Protocol, which you can probably already guess what it does. It's not enabled by default, but you can add it if you want to know whether a request was made via the standard HTTP or the secured HTTPS.

Also in the Net panel, there is now the possibility to resend a request simply by right-clicking on it and hitting the Resend button. In the Net panel you'll now also find HTTP headers that come from the browser cache rather than the web server.

"The DOM panel context menu introduces a new Add Watch command. This allows the developer to find specific object or field (can be several layers deep in the structure) and put it directly into the Script panel’s Watch window for further inspection and monitoring," Firebug explained another addition.

Firebug 1.9 is available for download here.