Mozilla has just released Firefox version 35 along with a slew of performance improvements, fixes and an enhanced version of Firefox Hello, the company's free cross-browser video chat app. The new version also shares Wi-Fi and cellular signals of mobile devices for enhanced geolocation services and to provide support to context-aware applications.
Firefox Hello is a plugin-free video chat service which allows users to talk to contacts on Firefox, Chrome or Opera. In the past, users would have to sit and wait until the contact joins the room. With the updated version, the user can continue surfing the web until the contact joins the call, which the user would see through a small window with a self-view.
In the future, Mozilla will be adding more features to the project such as screen sharing and web-based collaboration. To achieve this, the team behind the project is working hand-in-hand with Telefonica's TokBox and OpenTok.
Firefox Hello debuted in December with Firefox version 34. It is based on Web Real-Time Communications (WebRTC), which is an open-source API designed for in-browser video and audio communications without the need for specialized plug-ins such as Adobe's Flash. Mozilla calls it as "the first global communications system built directly into a browser."
To start using Firefox Hello, users can simply click the Hello button found on the toolbar, or they can right-click the toolbar, then click customize to add the button. After hitting "Start a conversation," the user can share the link with a contact to start video chatting directly on the browser.
"Firefox Hello lets you make free video and voice calls directly from the browser. All you need are a microphone, a webcam (optional), and the latest version of Firefox to call friends who are on WebRTC-supported browsers like Firefox, Chrome, or Opera," said Mozilla on its support page.
Other enhancements brought by the latest version include better dynamic styling, support for MP4 video on Mac OS X, and a new button for Firefox Share, which is already an existing feature of Firefox. This feature enables users to exchange links using Gmail, LinkedIn, Tumblr, Twitter, Facebook and more from a single pop-up.
Firefox version 35 also includes security patches to address some vulnerabilities. Other fixes that are included in the latest version are PDF.js update to version 1.0.907, reduced resource usage for scaled images, showing DOM properties context menu item in inspector and non-HTTP(S) XHR return of correct status code.
