Mozilla launched Firefox 8 with new updates

Mozilla on Tuesday released Firefox 8, adding Twitter search to the browser and patching eight vulnerabilities. Firefox 8's most notable addition was Twitter as a choice in Firefox's search bar, letting users look up topics, hashtags and usernames on the micro-blogging service. Mozilla also made good on a promise last August to automatically disable add-ons installed without user approval. When users start Firefox 8, all add-ons that have been surreptitiously installed are turned off by default.

One of the patches was for a data theft bug originally fixed in August when Mozilla launched Firefox 6, but which was reintroduced in Firefox 7 after developers launched a new Windows graphics acceleration framework, dubbed "Azure," in the September upgrade. Mozilla yesterday also released Firefox 3.6.24, a security update that patched three vulnerabilities. The aging edition -- Mozilla shipped Firefox 3.6 in January 2010 -- is still supported, in large part because enterprise users have resisted the company's rapid release tempo.

The pitch, which will urge users to upgrade to Firefox 8, will now appear Nov. 17. According to plans previously outlined by Mozilla, the company intends to stop patching Firefox 3.6 three months after it offers users the upgrade opportunity. As of last month, Firefox 3.6 was still the preferred browser of approximately one-fourth of all Mozilla users. Windows, Mac and Linux editions of Firefox 8 can be downloaded manually from Mozilla's site, while people running Firefox 4 or later will be offered the upgrade through the browser's own update mechanism.

Mozilla launched Firefox 8 with new updates to make browsing easier and give developers and users more control over their web experience. The upgrades apply to Firefox for Windows, Mac, Linux and the mobile Firefox for Android. There are several new features that include Twitter search integration, on-demand tab group loading and more WebGL graphics hardware acceleration support, PCMag.com reported.

Mozilla announced today the official release of Firefox 8, a new version of the popular open source Web browser. The built-in search box in Firefox’s navigation toolbar has been extended to support Twitter searches. Mozilla partnered with Twitter earlier this year to release a special build of Firefox that ties into the social network. Mozilla is cracking down on third-party applications that install add-ons in Firefox without the user’s knowledge or permission. Users can download Firefox 8 from Mozilla’s website.