One of the greatest cross platform web browsers the world has ever seen, Mozilla Firefox, today received a new update tagging along a plethora of new features. The update (Firefox 40), which had been expected for a while now, brings native windows 10 support, making it the first web browser outside Microsoft’s own Edge to ‘officially’ offer that.
The company today announced that Firefox 40 will now be available for Windows, Mac, Linux and Android. The highlights of the new version of this popular web browser include official Windows 10 support, added protection against unwanted software/malware downloads and new navigational gestures on Android.
As usual, existing Firefox desktop users will get the update automatically without any hectic procedure to follow while other desktop users can log onto Firefox.com to get their free copy of the web browser. Android users will be getting their updates gradually via Google Play.
The biggest update though, is Windows 10 support which in itself isn’t a new thing as older versions of Firefox were also compatible with Microsoft’s latest OS. But it is noteworthy that Mozilla is, for the first time, making the compatibility official.
Firefox 40 also brings a few cosmetic improvements here and there including larger ‘New Tab’ and ‘Close Tab’ icons, colour scheme changes in a few areas and a more contrast-y theme for all the visual representations.
The Android version of the web browser, on the other hand, didn’t get all that worked up on. We just get a few gesture additions along the way (you can now long press on the back and forward navigation buttons to bring up the history list), Android Presentation API is now supported and JPEG images use less memory when scaled and can now be painted faster.
One feature update that’s common to all four of Firefox’s supported platforms is the better malware protection.
Mozilla’s malware protection developments have been credited to Google’s Safe Browsing service, which let the company identify malware downloads as well as warn users about potentially unwanted software. The previous version of the web browser monitored malicious software downloads on Mac and Linux but the latest update will take malware protection to a whole new level. The browser will now warn you about deceptive content that could make unwanted changes to your system.
