Mozilla has launched Firefox 7 for Windows, Mac and Linux. It comes with speed improvements and tools for developers to create faster sites and apps.
“Firefox manages memory more efficiently to deliver a nimble Web browsing experience,” Mozilla says. “Users will notice Firefox is faster at opening new tabs, clicking on menu items and buttons on websites. Heavy Internet users will enjoy enhanced performance when lots of tabs are open and during long Web browsing sessions that last hours or even days.”
“New tools in Firefox make it easier for developers to build snappy Web experiences for users,” the organization adds. “A new version of hardware-accelerated Canvas speeds up HTML5 animations and games in Firefox. This allows developers to build more compelling and interactive Web experiences like Angry Birds or Runfield.”
The full new feature list is as follows:
- Drastically improved memory handling for certain use cases
- Added a new rendering backend to speed up Canvas operations on Windows systems
- Bookmark and password changes now sync almost instantly when using Firefox Sync
- The ‘http://’ URL prefix is now hidden by default
- Added support for text-overflow: ellipsis
- Added support for the Web Timing specification
- Enhanced support for MathML
- The WebSocket protocol has been updated from version 7 to version 8
- Added an opt-in system for users to send performance data back to Mozilla to improve future versions of Firefox
- Fixed several stability issues
- Fixed several security issues
The browser can be downloaded here.
Also announced today was an update to Firefox for Android, which comes with some of the same features.