Download Mozilla Firefox 18.0 Beta

As we are used to from Mozilla, the first beta release of the next version has already appeared shortly after the release of a stable version of the Firefox web browser. Version 18, which should be available in the second week of January, includes provisional support for the w3c standard WebRTC, which enables real-time voice and video communications, among other things. Also new is IonMonkey, a new JavaScript engine that delivers significantly better performance. In addition, the Mac’s high-resolution screens are supported, images are scaled better, and there are performance improvements when switching between tabs. Below is the provisionally incomplete overview of the improvements that we can expect in version 18.

New

• Support for Retina Display on OS X 10.7 and up
• Preliminary support for WebRTC

Changed

• Experience better image quality with our new HTML scaling algorithm
• Performance improvements around tab switching

Developer

• CSS3 Flexbox implemented
• Support for new DOM property window.devicePixelRatio
• Support for @supports added
• Improvement in startup time through smart handling of signed extension certificates

HTML5

• Support for W3C touch events impemented, taking the place of MozTouch events

Fixed

• Disable secure content loading on HTTPS pages (62178)
• Improved responsiveness for users on proxies (769764)

Known Issues

• If you try to start Firefox using a locked profile, it will crash (see 573369)
• For some users, scrolling in the main GMail window will be slower than usual (see 579260)
• Windows: The use of Microsoft’s System Restore functionality shortly after updating Firefox may prevent future updates (see 730285)
• Starting Firefox with -private flag incorrectly claims you are not in Private Browsing mode (see 802274) Unresolved on v18 Resolved in v19

The following downloads are available:
Mozilla Firefox 18.0 beta for Windows (English)
Mozilla Firefox 18.0 beta for Linux (English)
Mozilla Firefox 18.0 beta for Mac OS X (English)
Mozilla Firefox 18.0 Beta for Windows (English)
Mozilla Firefox 18.0 Beta for Linux (English)
Mozilla Firefox 18.0 Beta for Mac OS X (English)
Mozilla Firefox 18.0 beta for Windows (Frisian)
Mozilla Firefox 18.0 beta for Linux (Frisian)
Mozilla Firefox 18.0 Beta for Mac OS X (Frisian)