With rapid release in place, Firefox keeps adding one feature or the other in their upcoming release. Firefox just released Firefox 8 beta version with addition of few new features plus as usual loads of bug fixes and improvements. Some of the major additions with Firefox 8 is being Twitter being added as a search engine, better control of addons and ability to restore tabs on demand.

It adds Twitter as a default search option to make searching #hashtags and @usernames easier. (Currently available in English, Portuguese and Slovenian). Adding of twitter as a search engine in Firefox 8 can be a great addition for many as we all know that twitter does provide us the most latest and real time information in the form of tweets from users across the globe. With most major news breaks happening on twitter these days, this tool will be a good addition for many users.

Apart from addition of twitter as default search engine, It also adds the following features like ability to restore tabs on demand, better control of Add-on, tab animations etc.

  • Restore tabs on demand: Users can choose to load tabs only when selected, resulting in faster start-up times when windows with lots of tabs are restored. Windows users can find this option in the Firefox Menu, under Options, on the General tab. Mac users can find this option in the Firefox Menu, under Preferences, in the General tab.
  • Enhanced control of add-ons: Users will receive a one-time notification to review and confirm third party add-ons they want to keep, disable or delete. When Firefox starts and finds that a third-party program has installed an add-on, Firefox will disable the add-on until the user has explicitly opted in, giving users better control over their Web experience.
  • Tab animations: Firefox makes it easier to re-order and tear off tabs with animated tab movement.
  • CORS for WebGL textures: Cross-Origin Resource Sharing (CORS) enables Web developers to load textures from other domains for WebGL in a secure way.
  • WebSockets updates: Firefox now prevents the use of plaintext WebSockets when created from an SSL page, which improves security for users.
  • HTML5 Native Right Click Menu: Web developers can now add items directly to the Firefox right click menu using simple HTML5 markup.
  • HTML5 media elements: Developers can add a lot of video and audio elements to a website without impacting performance

Via: Mozilla Blog