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The bottom line: Firefox 12 is a worthy expression of Mozilla's ideals. The browser is competitively fast, sports a new minimalist look, and includes some excellently executed features. Unfortunately, that describes most of Firefox's competition, too.

Please note that the First Look video below is still applicable to Firefox 12, as is this Firefox How To collection, even though it features Firefox 4.

Review: For those of you who spent last year away from the Internet, it's the year that Firefox went from annual major-point updates to a Chrome-style quick-release cycle. How quick? A new major version … Read more

Mozilla has updated Firefox to version 12 today, completing a cycle of changes to how the program updates and bringing some serious elbow-grease to its developer tools.

You still have to you approve the User Account Control (UAC) the first time you install Firefox, but for all subsequent versions, it will automatically update without your approval. This is the same update procedure that Google Chrome has been using on Windows for more than a year with few if any known negative consequences.

You can download Firefox 12 for Windows | Mac | Linux.

Besides cutting down on the your interaction with the … Read more

Mozilla has announced that after more than two years of support, Firefox 3.6 will no longer receive updates as of April 24. The legacy version of the browser is notable for being the final version before the company embarked on a radically different production path in 2011 with Firefox 4.

Barring any last-minute security patches, last month's Firefox 3.6.28 will be the final update that the 3.6-branch receives. Organizations like businesses and universities are being encouraged by Mozilla to switch to the Firefox Extended Support Release, which will allow them to update annually. The current … Read more

A Windows 8 version of Firefox that can function in both the Metro and desktop arenas has gotten one step closer to completion. But will it be able to play in both worlds?

Last week Mozilla created a working browser for the new Windows interface. Blogging about his team's progress yesterday, Mozilla's Brian Bondy confirmed that the prototype looks and feels like the Android version with a variety of active features.

"You can navigate the web, create tabs, bookmark pages, build history, retain cache, adjust preferences, and more," Bondy said.

Even further, the prototype can tap … Read more

After years of tough competition from dominance-seeking Google Chrome and Internet Explorer, Mozilla faces a second year in a row of forced adaptations. Its aggressive Firefox 2012 development plan calls for surgeries both minor and radical to integrate many new pieces into the browser, but it may not survive post-op. At least, not as you know it.

So far, the changes have resulted in a Firefox which, simply put, runs better. Two of the most tangible new tools have changed add-on behavior. The addition of add-ons to Firefox Sync let you mirror the same add-ons at work and at home, … Read more

NirSoft's MozillaHistoryView reads the history DAT file in Mozilla-based Web browsers such as Firefox as well as Netscape and displays your browsing history under a wide range of useful column headings. The built-in History feature in the latest version of Firefox also displays lots of useful information, it's true. But you must have Firefox open to use it. MozillaHistoryView is a standalone tool that reads history DAT files directly, whether your browser is open or not. You can save and export the data in various ways, too. The program also gives you greater flexibility in accessing multiple browser … Read more

The new year started strong for Firefox on Android, as it relaunched with a completely new interface native to Android. Three months on, though, and it's still not ready for prime time.

The decision came toward the end of 2011: in order to create a more seamless Firefox on Android experience, Mozilla would scrap its then-current Android browser, built in XUL, and rebuild it with native Android code. The look and basic functionality debuted on January 3, but since then the new interface has missed two ship dates on Mozilla's six-week rapid-release cycle. So where does it stand … Read more

Firefox's Live Bookmarks feature does a fine job of keeping track of RSS feeds. Feed Sidebar is a free add-on that opens feeds in a sidebar equipped with a handy toolbar that makes it easy to search and sort feeds, mark them as read, and limit their age. It doesn't replace Live Bookmarks in Firefox; it augments the standard tool. But if you follow a lot of feeds, you'll like what it adds.

After a quick and trouble-free external download, we restarted Firefox. We clicked the RSS button on the toolbar, and clicked Feed Sidebar's left-hand … Read more

Faster and more secure browsing is coming to Firefox in a big way, as the first Aurora build of Firefox 13 gets the SPDY protocol activated by default, capping off more than four months of work putting SPDY into Firefox.

Firefox 13 Aurora (download for Windows, Mac, and Linux,) doesn't include many other new features or changes that affect Firefox fans directly, but there are many under-the-hood tweaks. One is a user agent change in Firefox for Android, so that Web sites can recognize when a person is running Firefox for Android on a phone or a tablet. This … Read more