Mozilla has released its latest version of the Firefox web browser – Firefox 34 – with a few new and exciting features. Also, it is the first version of the popular browser that offers Yahoo Search as its default search engine in the US (Yandex for Russia, Baidu for China and Google for other countries). This does not mean that users won’t be able to switch to other search providers anymore. On the contrary – other providers, such as Google, Bing, DuckDuckGo, eBay, Amazon, Twitter and Wikipedia will be built into the browser as optional search engines, TechCrunch reports.
Another exciting new feature about the new version of Firefox is its WebRTC-based built in chat client called Firefox Hello, freshly out of the beta testing period. The service will allow Firefox users to start video and audio chat sessions right out of the browser window, along with contact management services. The system is under development, though, so the Firefox browser will offer limited access to it at this time, with the goal to prevent its overload. The users will simply have to sign in with their Firefox account to be able to use the service to keep in contact with others through their browser.
The release noted of the new Firefox version list a series of improvements and bug fixes, like the improved search bar for the US English version of the browser, the switch of the Wikipedia search to a secure connection, the implementation of a series of APIs and standards, the possibility to switch themes or personas directly in the Customizing mode, and the fixing of several bugs, including flawed CSS rendering and several security flaws.
Mozilla Firefox was once the number one contender for the top browser position of the internet, but with the release of Chromium Google has grabbed an increasingly large portion of the browser market. According to StatCounter’s October 2014 statistics, Chrome is currently the most popular web browser in the world, being used by over 51% of internet users, followed by Internet Explorer, Firefox, Safari and Opera.