The new version of the most popular open source browser has been released yesterday bringing exciting speed improvements in various sectors and support for modern display technologies.
This release is not a long term support one like Firefox 10 and 17 were and version 24 will be, so you should only use this if you want to benefit from the specific improvements found in version 18.
What’s new
Here is a list with the most significant changes of the 18 release. For a complete list of changes check the release notes.
- Faster JavaScript performance via IonMonkey compiler
- Support for Retina Display on OS X 10.7 and up
- Preliminary support for WebRTC
- New HTML scaling algorithm that provides a better image quality experience
- Performance improvements around tab switching
- Support for new DOM property window.devicePixelRatio
- Improvement in startup time through smart handling of signed extension certificates
- Support for W3C touch events implemented, taking the place of MozTouch events
- Disable insecure content loading on HTTPS pages – (62178)
- Improved responsiveness for users on proxies – (769764)
Although things look very much improved for this version in the performance front, you should consider what your daily tasks are and how much you would benefit from upgrading. A discouraging reason for many people out there could be the slow scrolling in the main Gmail tab that is a part of the small but non-disregardable Known Issues list.
If you are willing to install the 18th version of Firefox browser you can either download the Linux package that contains the binary that you can use however you want (example: create a shortcut on your applications overview), or use the following Ubuntu ppa by typing these commands on a terminal:
sudo apt-add-repository ppa:mozillateam/firefox-next sudo apt-get update sudo apt-get install firefox