Yesterday Mozilla announced the official release of Firefox 8 – the newest version of the popular open source web browser. A few new features were added and a bunch of minor improvements were done to this new version. The built-in search box in Firefox’s navigation toolbar has been extended to support Twitter searches. Users can now select Twitter from the drop-down list of available search engines. Mozilla partnered with Twitter earlier this year to release a special build of Firefox that ties into the social network. This is cool.
Not just that but Firefox 8 now has stricter control over side-loaded add-ons. Firefox is cracking down on third party applications that do automated add-on installs which not only bring down user experience but also bring down browser performance. If Firefox 8 detects side-loaded add-ons when it starts, it will disable them by default and display a prompt asking the user if they want the add-on to be enabled. This will help protect users from invasive tool bars and other unwanted cruft.
Firefox 8 also improved its browser’s HTML rendering engine that gained support for cross-origin resource sharing. Download Firefox 8 from Mozilla’s website.