Windows, Mac and Linux versions of Firefox 12 are now available to download. The popular browser has gone from version 4 to 12 in about a year. The speed of the updates and increments in version numbers is due to the six week update cycle implemented at Mozilla. While whole version number updates usually bring significant changes to software, these less significant updates, dressed in full version number clothes, do let people know for sure their browser is up to date. For example it’s much easier to tell the more up to date file version between v11 and v12 than between v6.00.0036 and v6.01.0034! I have seen more convoluted version numbers than those examples which have different amounts of numbers, letters and decimal points.
The new version, Firefox 12, brings changes including the following:
- Improvements to “find on page” searches
- URLs pasted into the download manager window are now automatically downloaded
- Line numbers in page source view
- Line break support in title attributes
Also, if you are a Windows user, you might appreciate that there will be no UAC pop-ups about subsequent updates to Firefox, making the next update a bit smoother. This release will be the last to officially support users of Windows 2000, Windows XP RTM or XP Service Pack 1. So, Windows users, Firefox 13 will only be for users of XP SP2 or better.
Here are some download links for you, as the homepage links currently to v11;
Firefox 12 British English Windows
Firefox 12 American English Windows
Firefox 12 British English Mac OS X
Firefox 12 American English Mac OS X
Linux users can change the operating system variable in the above URLs from either “win” or “osx” to “linux”.
In a related news titbit the BBC is reporting that the Mozilla “Boot to Gecko” (B2G) OS will be on mobile phone handsets later this year. Touted as an open rival to Google’s Android, the first partnership announcement so far sees B2G becoming available on Telefonica Vivo handsets in Brazil by the end of 2012.
