Last Monday, Mozilla released the beta version of its soon to be released Firefox 18 browser. Several new features should vastly improve your browsing experience.
The Beta for Firefox v18 is available for Windows, Mac and Linux systems. Additionally, a mobile beta version is also available for Android smartphones.
TechCrunch reports that Mozilla has spent huge amounts of time perfecting their embedded PDF reader. Hopefully, all this development time will result in minimal problems in opening PDF files inside of Firefox. In fact, no PDF problems are listed in the Known Issues in the Beta 18 release notes.
A brand new JavaScript just-in-time compiler called IonMonkey is one of the major additions. In development for over a year, IonMonkey is up to 26% faster than previous just-in-time JavaScript compilers.
If you own a Mac with a Retina display, you will be happy as the beta supports the high-resolution display.
W3C Touch events are now supported and this support is replacing Mozilla’s MozTouch. So, if you have a touchscreen, Firefox 18 should treat you well.
The Android mobile version will warn you when you attempt to access a web site that Firefox believes to be harmful. You receive additional malware protection built into the beta version. A warning page will pop up and you can decide whether or not to continue.
If you are curious, download the mobile or desktop version and let us know how well the embedded PDF viewer works.