Mozilla today officially launched Firefox 29 for Windows, Mac, Linux,
and Android. This is a massive release: Firefox Sync has been revamped
and is now powered by Firefox Accounts, there’s a new customization
mode, and the company’s
major user interface overhaul Australis has finally arrived.
Firefox 29 has been released over on
Firefox.com and all existing users should be able to upgrade to it automatically.
Mozilla Firefox 29 is available for
download with a new user interface known as Australis and with many
important changes and new features.
The
Gamepad API is finally finalized and enabled and I am sure that gamers
will be very happy to play web games with a gamepad. The Gamepad API is
designed to be very simple and to work with the traditional gamepad
controllers, however it is difficult to support every device.
What
are some other new things in this release of Firefox? Firefox 29 has
many other new features such as a redesigned and improved customization
mode, an interactive on boarding tour to guide users through new
interface changes and the ability to set up Firefox Sync by creating a
Firefox account.
There are also two
known unresolved issues: Text Rendering Issues on Windows 7 with
Platform Update KB2670838 (MSIE 10 Prerequisite) or on Windows 8.1 has a
workaround and Without affecting security, after restoring your
session, Extended Validation Certificates might not display.
The following is the full list of changes and developer features in this version of Firefox:
Here’s the
full changelog for Firefox 29:
- New: Significant new customization mode makes it easy to personalize
your Web experience to access the features you use the most (learn more).
- New: A new, easy to access menu sits in the right hand corner of Firefox and includes popular browser controls.
- New: Sleek new tabs provide an overall smoother look and fade into the background when not active.
- New: An interactive onboarding tour to guide users through the new Firefox changes.
- New: The ability to set up Firefox Sync by creating a Firefox account (learn more).
- New: Gamepad API finalized and enabled (learn more).
- New: Malay [ma] locale added.
- Changed: Clicking on a W3C Web Notification will switch to the originating tab.
- Developer: ‘box-sizing’ (dropping the -moz- prefix) implemented (learn more).
- Developer: Console object available in Web Workers (learn more).
- Developer: Promises enabled by default (learn more).
- Developer: SharedWorker enabled by default.
- Developer: input type=”number” implemented and enabled.
- Developer: input type=”color” implemented and enabled.
- Developer: Enabled ECMAScript Internationalization API.
- Developer: Add-on bar has been removed, content moved to navigation bar.
Jonathan Nightingale, Mozilla’s Vice President of Firefox, told TNW
that users found Sync really difficult to set up. Mozilla has also made
it easier to discover, since many didn’t know it even existed, the VP
admitted.
You can try the new Firefox Sync by simply creating an account: all
four platforms support it. According to Mozilla, the revamped feature
“makes it even easier to setup and add multiple devices.”
Mozilla announced the new Accounts and Sync
back in February.
Firefox Accounts, which is part of Firefox OS as well, lets users keep
track of their login credentials for various services, as well as their
bookmarks, history, and any open tabs.
Firefox Sync, the service that actually lets you take your bookmarks,
tabs, and personal information with you to another device, is now more
secure. More specifically, Mozilla underlines three improvements:
- Client side key stretching: a technique that protects against
man-in-the-middle attacks, even when SSL credentials are compromised.
- End-to-end encryption: even if Mozilla’s servers are compromised, it is extremely difficult to access a user’s data.
- Public key cryptography and the BrowserID protocol: Separation
between authentication, authorization, and data storage servers to
minimize the number of servers that handle authentication material, and
thus reducing our attack surface.
Mozilla has also removed a few things from the main toolbar. The act of
bookmarking and management has been combined. The download manager now
only shows up if you’ve downloaded a file recently. The same goes for
the forward button: it only shows up if it might be needed, which is
naturally much less frequently than the back button.
Customization is now “front and center” in Firefox: the second you
exit customization mode, everything stays exactly where you put it.
While the feature is very straightforward to use, Nightingale said it “took the most engineering and design time” than any other feature.
Last but certainly not least, is Australis. All the aforementioned
customization is being done in what Mozilla calls “the most carefully
designed browser interface on the planet.” Nightingale says “the look of
the entire UI has changed” as the company has spent quite a lot of time
making it “more beautiful” and making sure information is present in a
cleaner way.
The company says Firefox’s overall look and feel now focuses more on
your Web content, particularly thanks to the new tab structure. Tabs
have a “more fluid and streamlined shape,” are positioned higher up in
the browser, and those that are not in use have been visually
de-emphasized.
As part of the redesign, there’s a new menu panel that includes all
of your browser controls, features, and add-ons in one place. You can
find familiar tools like copy/paste, print, full page, save, and so on,
but there’s also a permanent section for Firefox add-ons, so this is
where you can find them all after the download is complete. Nightingale
told that the single menu not only makes using Firefox simpler, but it
actually brings the browser closer to a mobile UI, which helps the team
develop the app across platforms.
