The latest Firefox 21 desktop Firefox brings more Do Not Track options and more social networking integration, while Android Firefox gets open source fonts.
Mozilla developed the Social API to enable social providers to integrate directly into Firefox to make your browsing experience more social, customizable and personal. The Social API makes it easy for your favorite social providers to add a sidebar with your content to Firefox or notification buttons directly on the Firefox toolbar.
Last year Mozilla launched with Facebook as the first social integration partner in Firefox. Today, Mozilla is adding multiple new social providers Cliqz, Mixi and msnNOW to Firefox, in addition to Facebook Messenger for Firefox.
Cliqz delivers a real-time stream of the most relevant articles, stories, and videos based on your interests directly to Firefox. You can personalize your news feed by selecting categories, keywords, websites, and specific people you want to follow. Share links across your social networks or by email; preview Twitter commentary; and save articles for later without ever leaving Firefox.
The Mixi sidebar let's you stay in touch with your friends on the Mixi social network in Japan. It provides a real-time activity stream of all comments and photo shares from your personal social network directly to your Firefox browser. Mixi for Firefox is only available to users in Japan.
msnNOW makes it easy to stay up to date on the things people are talking about, searching for and sharing the most on Web. MSN scours the most interesting trends from real-time sources like Facebook, Twitter, Bing, and BreakingNews.com. You can customize the activity stream to watch for particular types of trending content from the sidebar dropdown menu.
The updated browser also adds new Do Not Track options - a third choice since the original implementation was limited to "track me" and "do not track me". It now defaults to a "no signal" option, so that Do Not Track is disabled.
"When DNT is off, it doesn't mean 'please track me.' It means that the user hasn't told the browser their choice yet," wrote Tom Lowenthal, a security engineer at Firefox.
The next version of Firefox coming next month is expected to effectively block tracking cookies.
Also in the new Firefox 21 is the Firefox Health Report, which offers advice on how to better customize Firefox to minimize its impact on system performance.
Firefox 21 for Android offers new default fonts, the open source Open Sans and Charis fonts to replace the default Android fonts in the Web browser. Mozilla changed the Firefox for Android fonts to "enable a more visually appealing and clear reading experience on the Web," the company wrote in its blog post.
Full release notes are available for
Firefox for desktops and
Firefox for Android.
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Firefox for Windows, Mac and Linux