Mozilla today officially launched Firefox 30 for Windows, Mac, Linux, and Android. Additions include a button for direct access to sidebars (social, bookmark, and history), support for GStreamer 1.0, and new quickshare buttons in the context menu on Android.
Firefox 30 has been released over on Firefox.com and all existing users should be able to upgrade to it automatically. As always, the Android version is trickling out slowly on Google Play.
In terms of new features, this is a relatively minor release, especially when compared to the major revamp that came as part of Firefox 29. Mozilla has been mainly focusing on putting the final touches on what it calls “the most carefully designed browser interface on the planet.”
Desktop
While this isn’t a major release, the new desktop version does have a sizeable list of changes. Here’s the full changelog for Firefox 30:
- New: Sidebars button in browser chrome enables faster access to social, bookmark, & history sidebars.
- New: Mac OS X command-E sets find term to selected text.
- New: Support for GStreamer 1.0.
- Changed: Disallow calling WebIDL constructors as functions on the web.
- Developer: With the exception of those bundled inside an extension or ones that are whitelisted, plugins will no longer be activated by default (see blog post).
- Developer: Fixes to box-shadow and other visual overflow (see bug 480888).
- Developer: Mute and volume available per window when using WebAudio.
- Developer: background-blend-mode enabled by default.
- Developer: Use of line-height allowed for .
- Developer: ES6 array and generator comprehensions implemented (readdocs for more details).
- Developer: Error stack now contains column number.
- Developer: Support for alpha option in canvas context options (feature description).
- Fixed: Ignore autocomplete=“off” when offering to save passwords via the password manager (see 956906).
- Fixed: TypedArrays don’t support new named properties (see 695438).
If you’re a Web developer, you should probably check out Firefox 30 for developers.
Android
New buttons aside, the Android version has also gained support for six new languages. Here’s the full Firefox 30 for Android changelog:
- New: Add web content to home page panels using Home Feeds Add-On.
- New: Add Quickshare buttons to Context menu.
- New: Locales added: Belarusian [be], Argentine Spanish [es-AR], Mexican Spanish [es-MX], Indonesian [id], Latvian [lv], Malay [ms].
- Changed: Disallow calling WebIDL constructors as functions on the web.
- Developer: Fixes to box-shadow and other visual overflow (see bug 480888).
- Developer: Mute and volume available per window when using WebAudio.
- Developer: background-blend-mode enabled by default.
- Developer: Use of line-height allowed for .
- Developer: ES6 array and generator comprehensions implemented (readdocs for more details).
- Developer: Error stack now contains column number.
- Developer: Support for alpha option in canvas context options (featuredescription).
- Fixed: Ignore autocomplete=“off” when offering to save passwords via the password manager (see 956906).
- Fixed: TypedArrays don’t support new named properties (see 695438).
- Fixed: After MP4 video playback, video can not be played again (1005622).
New versions of Firefox are released approximately every six weeks. Firefox 31 will be out at the end of July.
