Firefox 8 is here
Mozilla has released Firefox 8, so if you want to stay ahead of the curve, it's time to upgrade.
There are a fair few new features in this release for you to get your teeth into:
- Add-ons installed by third party programs are now disabled by default - This gives users the choice of auditing what add-ons are installed and kicking to the kerb any they're no longer using.
- Twitter search added tot he search bar.
- New preference added that allows users to choose to load tabs on demand at startup, thereby improving performance when the browser is launched.
- Improved performance and memory handling when using <audio> and <video> elements.
- Whole bunch of stability and security fixes.
Words of caution: Should you upgrade? Well ... it depends. If you're relying on certain add-ons to work then you might want to carry out a test install first just to see that everything works. When I downloaded Firefox 8 yesterday ahead of the official release, a LOT of add-ons stopped working, so be warned! Alternatively, wait a few days for add-on developers to get their act together and update their code.
Note: If you do install Firefox 8 and find that things don't work right, you can uninstall it and re-install an earlier version.
Is it evolutionary or revolutionary? Personally, I don't see anything in this version that demanded that it be assigned a whole new version number, but it's Mozilla's browser and naming is not a democracy.
Download the new Firefox here. Available for Windows, Mac and Linux. Also released today was version 8 of Thunderbird, Mozilla's email client.
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