Firefox 21 New features
Times are changing
Firefox 21 has just been released to the Aurora channel. New features have been implemented and currently the next step is to fix bugs and prepare it for the final release. But what has changed? This release sees subtle improvements rather than a huge overhaul.
Firefox 21 new features
Better HTML5 experience - Several months ago, Google Chrome implemented support for H.264, AAC and MP3. In response, the Mozilla team has done the same. This means that with the help of HTML5, more file formats can be embedded in websites.
This is a part from a phase of changes which aim to better support HTML5 and encourage the growth of feature-rich websites as an alternative to Adobe Flash.
New Looks - This one only applies to Ubuntu and some Ubuntu-based distros. To make Firefox look more native, a new theme called 'Australis' will be implemented. The most notable change is in the download menu
Among some other minor changes, there has been some more choices when it comes to Do Not Track. You can now choose one of three options:
- Tell sites that I do not want to be tracked
- Tell sites that want to be tracked
- Do not tell sites anything about my tracking preferences
Try it out
To test out the latest and greatest Firefox, you can download it from Mozilla's website. For Ubuntu users, simply add the nightly ppa and install the package firefox-trunk. This will not remove the stable version of Firefox:
sudo add-apt-repository ppa:ubuntu-mozilla-daily
Then when this message appears, hit enter:
You are about to add the following PPA to your system:
daily (or even multiple builds per day) for various mozilla projects and branches.
For questions and bugs with software in this archive, please contact <email address hidden> or visit #ubuntu-mozillateam on freenode.
More info: https://launchpad.net/~ubuntu-mozilla-daily/+archive/ppa
Press [ENTER] to continue or ctrl-c to cancel adding it
And finally:
sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get install firefox-trunk
When will Firefox 21 be released?
In case you are curious, Firefox 21 will be released May 14th if everything happens as planned.
Update: Firefox 22 has been released in the Nightly Channel. Check out the new privacy features on Tech Resen's posts on Firefox 22's new features.
