14 DAY TRIAL // Firefox 8 is now available in the Aurora channel, the most experimental channel not dedicated to developers exclusively. The latest Firefox comes with several new features and tweaks.
One big change in Firefox 8, which we've highlighted previously, is blocking add-ons installed by third-parties and not via Firefox. These add-ons have always caused problems and Mozilla wants to make sure that users are more informed when installing them.
"The latest experimental additions to Firefox Aurora for Windows, Mac and Linux streamline the user interface and give users more control when managing third-party add-ons," Mozilla announced.
"This update adds support for more HTML5 technologies, improves performance and scalability of HTML5 media elements, updates the WebSockets protocol and adds CORS support to WebGL," it said.
The Firefox UI is also getting a refresh in the latest Aurora release. There are now tab animations when moving, rearranging or detaching tabs. This is more than just a visual thing, it also makes these actions more intuitive for users.
There is also a new option useful for those with a lot of tabs open all the time. Users can now opt to have tabs load on demand, when the tab is selected, to cut down on start-up time.
There are more changes under the hood. Cross-origin textures are allowed again with WebGL, after being disabled in Firefox 5 due to an inherent security vulnerability in the technology, but developers have to use CORS headers if they want to use the feature.
There are some updates for Websockets as well. Firefox 8 Aurora supports the latest version of the protocol and introduces support for the Websockets API.
Firefox 8 continues Mozilla's effort to cut down on memory usage. Some big improvements are already available in Firefox 7, but the latest Aurora update brings some improvements for pages using the <audio> and <video> HTML5 elements.
Firefox for Windows are available for download here. Firefox for Linux are available for download here. Firefox for Mac are available for download here.