Mozilla has released Firefox 26 as anticipated and as expected the latest version of the web browser comes with support for H.264, incorporates a bunch of security fixes and defaults all Java plugins to ‘click to play’.
Originally planned for Firefox 24, defaulting of all Java plugins has been a long time coming, because of the flood of Java zero-days that plagued the internet leaving millions of users vulnerable to attacks. Under this feature whenever, Firefox comes across a Java applet or Java Web Start launcher, it asks authorization from the user before it will allow the plugin to launch.
Users who are sure of a particular webpage and the validity and safety of the Java plugins from that webpage can click on “Allow and Remember” to add it to a whitelist. This will ensure that Java code from that particular webpage will be allowed without further authorization.
Beyond this, Firefox 26 also incorporates new features such as support for script-generated password fields in Password Manager, updates to Firefox without requiring write permissions, and support for H.264. In terms of changes that are incorporated in Firefox 26, first it the MP3 decoding support on Windows XP, and support for multiple policies in CSP implementation. There are quite a few developer related updates as well. Firefox 26 release notes can be found here and complete list of changes and be found here.
