Mozilla’s latest release of their popular Firefox browser (version 10) is likely to drastically affect the way developers interact with the various users of their websites. Firefox 10 has also drastically streamlined the compatibility of add-ons. In other changes, an update for WebGL has been released along with a brand new Full Screen API. However, the Android version is still in the works as development of the mobile version has been focused on the native Android interface which is scheduled for release in the next stable version.
The biggest change in the latest edition of Firefox which users will notice is that most of the add-ons will no longer be incompatible with the newer version of Firefox. About 80 percent of the add-ons will now be compatible with Firefox 10. This change is expected to solve a small but annoying issue which came up when Firefox decided to switch to a rapid release cycle in 2011. Before Firefox 4 was released in March 2011, most add-ons would fail whenever Firefox released a major update as they required a number of back end changes for the new version.
However, since the rapid release cycle had not yet been implemented, developers were still able to fix their add-ons within a few weeks of the release. The problem was exacerbated with the subsequent implementation of the 6 week release schedule, which meant developers had to fix their add-ons for the updated version every month and a half. With Firefox 10, this annoying issue has been resolved and most applications will be compatible on upgrade, barring the few that require major changes.
Mozilla already boasts of a robust tool set and the new developer tools in Firefox 10 for PCs adds some serious heft to the browser’s developer-friendly credentials. One of the tools is Style Inspector, which will enable editing CSS code on the fly in the browser window itself. Among the other tools, there is the Eclipse Orion code editor for JavaScript editing in ScratchPad and Page Inspector for analyzing a website’s layout and structure without having to navigate out of the web browser window.
Among other announcements, the new Firefox app for Android is expected to look more like a native Android app, which means that most users will not find it hugely different from the previous version, apart from the performance tweaks under the hood. Mozilla has also released an enterprise version of Firefox, which will release on a slower release schedule to provide greater long term support for businesses who typically cannot easily update their security protocols on a six week cycle to accommodate changes in the browser.
