Mozilla has announced a new Firefox Beta is available for developer download and testing for both desktop and mobile. With both versions of the browser featuring new enhancements, the company says it has done more for developers to evaluate and trial the new offering than for any other release to date.
The new beta comes hot on the heels of Mozilla's recently announced Firefox Aurora development channel, a development which the company says it has undertaken in order to support more frequent releases. The shift to a more rapid release development cycle is hoped to bring enhancements, security updates, and stability improvements from developers to users faster.
After five weeks of testing on the Firefox Aurora development channel the latest release includes the following updates:
- Firefox channel switcher: A tool to enabling programmers to move between Firefox Aurora, Beta, and Release channels to test features at various levels of development, quality, and polish.
- Performance and stability enhancements for the new CSS Animations standards: This, says Mozilla in a frustratingly generalized way, enables developers "to build more amazing web experiences" — any deeper meaning we are left to guess at for now.
The company underlines the fact that this mobile version of Firefox is the first mobile web browser to support Mozilla's Do Not Track privacy feature, giving users more control over the way their browsing behavior is tracked and used online.
Mozilla says that the latest Firefox Beta continues to carry features like Sync, Add-ons, and the rather 'painfully titled' Awesome Screen, while being one of the first to use brand new features and functionality that will be in the upcoming stable release of Firefox for mobile. The non-profit company states that it is actively seeking developer and wider user feedback at all levels.
