Firefox 8 to land with built-in Twitter search

The latest version of Mozilla's Firefox 8 is due to launch on Tuesday, boasting new integration with Twitter that will allow users to scan the social network from the browser search box.

The new software has leaked onto the web via links to Mozilla's FTP servers, but the firm warned against downloading the browser until its official launch as the current build is still undergoing testing.

Firefox 8 no longer supports third-party add-ons by default in an effort to make the browser faster and more secure.

"Sometimes Firefox add-ons are installed automatically by other programs like security software without your knowledge. These third-party add-ons often add little value and can slow down or even harm Firefox," said the Firefox support page.

"With the latest Firefox update, we made an attempt to disable some of these add-ons so you can enjoy a faster browsing experience. If you want to keep these third-party add-ons all you have to do is re-enable them."

The latest version of Firefox also restores previous browser sessions if they crash or are closed abruptly, but in a different way. Firefox 8 will restore each tab as the user demands rather than all of them at once, so the session can be brought back faster than before.

Under the hood, Firefox 8 beta adds support for cross-origin resource sharing, a W3C recommended method for sharing cross-site content in a more secure way, especially WebGL graphics content, which has been the focus of warnings about potential vulnerabilities.

For developers, Firefox now supports HTML5 media elements for audio and video content, plus the ability to add items to Firefox's right-click menu using HTML5 markup.

Mozilla Firefox 8 will be released six weeks after the previous version, and the alpha release of Firefox 9 is already available.