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.

Related: