Mozilla brings out Firefox 30 for Mac, Windows, and Android

Mozilla has launched Firefox 30 for Mac, Windows, and Linux.

A new Firefox 30 for Android is on the way, too.

Firefox boasts lots of advantages over other browsers. The mobile web browser platform is very closely linked to the desktop browser platform, so users can easily synchronize their settings and preferences.

Firefox holds the spot as only the fourth most popular browser in the U.S. — it was once the second-most popular browser, second to Internet Explorer — but the new mobile and desktop versions are certainly worth checking out.

The new version doesn’t sport too many extreme changes for end users. The upgrade does include a convenient new button in the browser for easy access to bookmark, social, and history sidebars; GStreamer 1.0 support so Linux users can access H.264 video as well as AAC and MP3 audio files through the browser; and command-E sets to find text on Macs and use that text as the basis for a search.

As far as developer changes, plugins will no longer be activated automatically (except those whitelisted or those part of an extension pack), background-blend-mode will be enabled by default, and the error stack now contains column number.

Firefox 30 for Android includes new Quickshare buttons and new locales (Argentine Spanish, Mexican Spanish, Latvian, Malay, Indonesian, and Belarusian). Mozilla has vastly improved page-load times on 3G as well as the web browser’s overall performance, thanks to new CSS3 animations and the smoothing of page panning.

All existing Firefox users can now download the new Firefox 30 onto their computers, and Firefox 30 for Android will be released for download very shortly.

You can view the full change log for Firefox 30 here. Web developers should check out release changes that will affect them here.