14 DAY TRIAL // Mozilla graduated Firefox 6 to the Aurora channel over the weekend. For curious users, the latest Firefox build brings several new features, but nothing out of the ordinary. Developers though have a lot more to celebrate.
Apart from the new Web Developer menu and new tools, Firefox 6 also brings back support for WebSockets, adds a progress bar element and several other improvements under the hood.
"The most notable addition to this new Aurora are the <progress> element, window.matchMedia API, better APIs for binary data, Server-Sent Events as well as the return of WebSockets," Mozilla's Louis-Rémi Babé writes.
One interesting addition is the <progress> element. As the name implies, it can be used to indicate a progress of sorts in a web app. Firefox uses the native progress bar from the operating system it's running on, so the new feature should prove an interesting way of getting web apps to look and feel more like native ones.
"WebSockets can be used to create an interactive communication channel between a browser and a server. They are already used to build 'HTML5' chats, multiplayer games, and much much more," Mozilla explained.
"Note that this API will be temporarily namespaced in prevision of upcoming changes to the specification," it added.
Another addition in Firefox 6 Aurora is an improvement of the Adobe Flash content control integration. The latest Adobe Flash 10.3 enables browsers to control local storage objects and set privacy policies, enabling websites to store data locally via Flash or not. With Firefox 6 Aurora, users can clear Flash "cookies" along with regular ones from the browser dialog.
Firefox 6 Aurora and Firefox 5 Beta for Windows are available for download here. Firefox 6 Aurora and Firefox 5 Beta for Mac are available for download here. Firefox 6 Aurora and Firefox 5 Beta for Linux are available for download here.