Mozilla Firefox 33, the latest stable update to the widely popular open-source web browser, is now rolling out on Ubuntu.
Those using a supported release of Ubuntu will receive an automatic upgrade to the latest version via the Software Updater tool.
New in Firefox 33
Search improvements are peppered throughout this release.
Developers have improved the response times of searches made in the ‘Awesome Bar’, with Mozilla Software Engineer Jared Wein, M.Sc., stating that “most people will see search results on average 5 seconds quicker!”.
The search boxes embedded into the New Tab and the Firefox Home (about:home) pages now offer search suggestions, too.
As an aside, if you’re longing to see this particular feature appear in the Awesome Bar shade you’ll be pleased to know that it is, as an optional extra, in development.
Other changes rocking up in this release include:
- OpenH264 sandboxed support
- Continued improvements to WebRTC
- Support for connecting to HTTP proxy over HTTPS
- Improvements to session restoration
- Faster JavaScript strings
- Misc. HTML5 Improvements
- Bug fixes
Enhanced Tiles Held Back
Firefox’s new “Enhanced Tiles” featured in early beta builds of v33, though didn’t quite make it into the final release.
Enhanced Tiles enable select partner sites which are already in a user’s browsing history and listed on the New Tab page to forgo showing an auto-generated thumbnail, instead using one supplied by the partner.
Enhanced tiles feature a standard and rollover image. Depending on the source, these can be used to show additional information, like the latest headline on a site or featured content.
Getting Firefox 33
Firefox 33 is rolling out across Ubuntu 12.04 LTS, 14.04 LTS and 14.10 now. Run an update check using Software Updater to find it.
Alternatively, if you’re using a different desktop distro (or are still rolling on an older release) you can grab binaries from Mozilla directly.
Although not as slick as our Google Chrome extension, our Firefox Add-On is compatible with this latest release.