Firefox 26 is released for desktop and Android

Firefox 26 is now available to download. There are minor bug fixes and changes to the desktop version, while on Android there’s a new home screen designed to make it easier to go to your favorite pages, bookmarks and history.

Firefox 26 for Android also adds Bing and Yahoo! to your search options, where previously there was only Google. On desktop, a new plug-in manager has been introduced. This gives you more control over plug-ins. Until now, most plug-ins were activated by default in Firefox, but from 26, when a site wants to use a plug-in, you can choose whether to allow it or not. The exception to this is Flash, which is so prevalent on the web, Mozilla wisely decided to enable it by default. Authorization works per site, so you won’t have to click-to-play a plug-in on every page you visit.

Mozilla explained on its blog that plug-ins are now a ‘legacy technology’ for the most part, and pose security risks. Modern browser technologies make them unnecessary. In making plug-ins ‘click to play’, Mozilla hopes to encourage web developers to stop using plug-ins where possible and move to newer technologies like WebGL, WebSockets, WebRTC, and asm.js.

Firefox updates are still coming thick and fast, although earlier in the year we expected a new design to have been introduced by Firefox 25. That new design, codenamed Australis, is already in Firefox’s Nightly Builds (test releases), but we don’t know when it will be introduced to the official release.

Download Firefox 26 for Android, Windows and Mac.

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[Source: Mozilla]