Firefox enables WebRTC by default in nightly release, Firefox 19 released

firefox19In its latest nightly release, Firefox has enabled support for WebRTC, H.264 And MP3 by default (download link).

WebRTC (Real Time Communication) is a plugin-free real-time video, audio and text chat protocol that most browser vendors now support. Now that WebRTC has been enabled by default, we are confident that it will slowly make its way into the stable release channel over the next few months.

What this means is that users with the Firefox nightly release can directly video chat with other users without downloading any other plug ins. This works with users on Chrome also, which already had this built in by default for some time now.

Check out the video below in which Mozilla’s Todd Simpson video chats with Google Chrome’s Hugh Finnan using WebRTC in their respective browsers without any additional plugins.

Firefox 19 released

Along with the latest nightly release of Firefox, Mozilla has also published the latest stable release of Firefox 19 for Windows, Mac, Linux, and Android.

The main update here is that it includes a built-in PDF viewer that will eliminate the need for third-party plugins such as Adobe’s Reader, which are often a source for security vulnerabilities. PDF files can now be viewed from within the browser itself.  Although the viewer can run on PCs, tablets and mobiles, it has not been included in the Firefox for Android update.

Firefox 19 for Android has introduced theme support, additional ARMv6 support, and lowers the
minimum requirements to a 600MHz processor and 512MB of RAM.

The latest stable release of Firefox is now available for Windows, Mac, Linux, and Android.

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