Firefox 19 for Mac Now Available for Download

[MacRumors]

Firefox 19 is slated to be launched on Tuesday, but as noted by The Next Web, the latest version is already available for*download from Mozilla's servers. The U.S. version of Firefox 19 for the Mac can be found in the aforementioned folder by accessing the Mac directory and then selecting "en-US."

Most notably, this update includes a built-in PDF viewer, making former PDF viewing plug-ins obsolete. The viewer was built using HTML5 and will provide a quicker, more secure way to read PDFs in the browser.

Firefox 19, which comes more than a month after*Firefox 18, also includes remote debugging, bug fixes, and CSS improvements. While the official release notes have yet to be posted, the*beta notes are available:

-Built-in PDF viewer
-Canvas elements can export their content as an image blob using canvas.toBlob()
-Startup performance improvements (bugs 715402 and 756313)
-Debugger now supports pausing on exceptions and hiding non-enumerable properties
-Remote Web Console is available for connecting to Firefox on Android or Firefox OS (experimental, set devtools.debugger.remote-enabled to true)
-There is now a Browser Debugger available for add-on and browser developers (experimental, set devtools.chrome.enabled to true)
-Web Console CSS links now open in the Style Editor
-CSS @page is now supported
-CSS viewport-percentage length units implemented (vh, vw, vmin and vmax)
-CSS text-transform now supports full-width
-Starting Firefox with -private flag incorrectly claims you are not in Private Browsing mode (802274)

The official launch of Firefox 19 will take place tomorrow, on February 19. The updated version of the browser will be*available for download*from the Mozilla website.

Update: The FTP link has been removed. Firefox 19 is now officially available from the Mozilla website.

Article Link: Firefox 19 for Mac Now Available for Download

[viperGTS]

19?!?!?

[balwx]

wow

[Rudy69]

Yet somehow they still don't support Lion's scrollbars :/

[mrsir2009]

Huh...?

It seems like it was yesterday when I was using Firefox 3 - And I'm only 16! When the hell did they rack up 19 releases?

[SandboxGeneral]

You can see their RapidRelease/Calendar here and a blog posting about it too here.

[balwx]

I haven't tried FF in a long time.

[OriginalMacRat]

Originally Posted by viperGTS

19?!?!?

You blinked.

Now version 20 is out.

[Bill Killer]

Firefox has fallen so far behind Chrome and Safari.

[Xenomorph]

Originally Posted by Bill Killer

Firefox has fallen so far behind Chrome and Safari.

Really? I still see Firefox as a the better browser, by far.

Tell me, how functional is Chrome & Safari's NoScript extension? How customizable are their interfaces?

I can't think of any reason to use something like Internet Explorer, Opera, Chrome, or Safari.

[TheGenerous]

I loved Firefox.

[balwx]

FF, Chrome, IE, Safari....

Feels like I was using NCSA Mosaic not that long ago.

[a0me]

Are people on Mac still using Firefox? I switched to Chrome after Firefox 4 but I'd be curious to see what's the user base for each browser now.

[Michaelgtrusa]

Fast!!

[lewis82]

I'm using Nightly, aka Firefox 21.0a1. The PDF reader has been there since version 14 in the alphas, but somehow never made it to the beta even though it was perfectly stable since at least version 16.

[slicecom]

People still use Firefox?

[doubleaa]

I'm going to wait until FireFox 47. Safari will suffice for a few more weeks.

[autrefois]

Originally Posted by Bill Killer

Firefox has fallen so far behind Chrome and Safari.

You must be mistaken — Firefox is on version 19, and Safari is still on 6. So Firefox is obviously over three times more advanced! (At least that's what the folks at Mozilla would apparently want us to think.)

[mrsir2009]

Originally Posted by Bill Killer

Firefox has fallen so far behind Chrome and Safari.

Eh... I use Firefox at school, and IMO it's pretty decent. All the major browsers are good now, for most purposes. I use Chrome personally, but I wouldn't at all mind using FF, Safari, or IE (on Windows) either.

[jonnysods]

I'm holding out for FF 90 in March.

[blesscheese]

Originally Posted by Xenomorph

Really? I still see Firefox as a the better browser, by far.

Tell me, how functional is Chrome & Safari's NoScript extension? How customizable are their interfaces?

I can't think of any reason to use something like Internet Explorer, Opera, Chrome, or Safari.

Agreed, and it is open source, and serviced by a dedicated community.

I try not to get paranoid about things, but having Google collect and hang on to all my info does get me wondering at times...

[Krafty]

Lol, one new feature accounts for a whole upgrade.

[marc11]

I use to love FF myself, but when they had that period where each new release broke each and every plug in, I gave up; I think this has been long since corrected, but I just moved on. It just became too frustrating and the new version numbering thing is retarded; they would be way better off following the generally accepted practice of point releases for minor changes like this, and version changes for major releases.

[Bill Killer]

Originally Posted by mrsir2009

Eh... I use Firefox at school, and IMO it's pretty decent. All the major browsers are good now, for most purposes. I use Chrome personally, but I wouldn't at all mind using FF, Safari, or IE (on Windows) either.

It's not bad by any means, but while Chrome and Safari have done a good job of excising themselves of bloat and focusing on application speed, Firefox has gone the heavy customization route. Great for some people, but completely unnecessary for my needs. All of them offer extensions, but Firefox, to me, is defined by these extensions, and the performance slows a bit too much for my liking.

On a Windows machine, though, I'd choose it 10 out of 10 times over Safari.

[ardent73]

Originally Posted by Bill Killer

Firefox has fallen so far behind Chrome and Safari.

Firefox still has features that I consider absolutely necessary, that no other browser has ever had. Chrome is good, not great, I still use it. And I wouldn't use Safari if you paid me to. (I would use IE but only if paid. )