Mozilla today released Firefox 12, patching 14 security bugs and a adding silent update feature similar to Google's Chrome browser.

Firefox for Windows, Mac and Linux makes includes more than 85 improvements to built-in developer tools.For example, developers no longer need to reload the page to see messages in the Web Console, and Scratchpad adds Find and Jump to Line commands to the editor. Mozill asiad that the improvements touched on every one of the built-in tools.

Mozilla also patched 19 other bugs in the mobile edition of Firefox, which runs on the Android platform.

Among the 14 desktop vulnerabilities, Mozilla patched three that could be used by hackers in cross-site scripting (XSS) attacks, one that applied only to Windows Vista and Windows 7 PCs with hardware acceleration disabled and another in image rendering done by the WebGL 3D standard.

The new browser also "simplifies" the update process for Windows users by removing the user account control dialog (UAC) pop-up. Once a user gives explicit permission to Firefox on their first installation, they will not be prompted again for subsequent releases.