Bang on schedule, the latest release of Mozilla Firefox has been made available for download.
Firefox 26 is light on user-facing features, with the most visible being a change to the way Java plugins are handled. From this release onwards Firefox will only load Java plugins on a ‘Click to Play‘ basis, or when a user specifically sets a plugin to ‘always run’ on certain websites. Prior to this Firefox would automatically load Java whenever a site asked for it.
Mozilla say that this on-demand approach to plugin loading puts ‘users in control’ while providing ‘performance, stability, and security benefits.’
Elsewhere, the free and open-source browser also adds support for H.264 on Linux (assuming the correct Gstreamer plug-ins are installed); a Social Bookmarking feature through the Social API; and a new app manager focused on helping developers test web apps on Firefox OS. A full change-log can be found on the Firefox website.
Ubuntu users running 12.04 LTS or above will get this latest update through regular update channels in the coming days.