Firefox 17 is more social and secure - no support for OS X 10.5

Another six weeks, another Firefox version. This time around it's Firefox 17 that has hit the stable channel. As has become the norm since Mozilla implemented its rapid release schedule in 2011, this version introduces a couple of larger features alongside a handful of small ones. Let's jump right in.

Firefox 17's banner feature is a new Social API which is sort of similar to the search API that allows different services to use Firefox's search box. The only service that currently plugs into the social API is Facebook Messenger, but anyone can leverage the API. Navigating to the Facebook for Firefox page while running Firefox 17 and clicking the Turn On button will enable a persistent sidebar in your Firefox window that shows you your Facebook chat list as well as your outstanding notifications. Pop-up notifications will also appear in the lower-right corner of your screen.