Mozilla said that to improve security and cut crashes, Firefox will block plug-ins including Microsoft Silverlight, Adobe Reader, Apple's QuickTime and Oracle's Java. Only the newest version of Adobe Systems' Flash Player will be run by default, said Michael Coates, Mozilla's director of security assurance, in a blog post. Plug-ins extend a browser's ability to run software or handle different media and file formats, but that extra ability opens new avenues for attack.

Officially, IE10 on Windows 7 remains in Release Preview, a build that debuted Nov. 13, 2012. At the time, Computerworld speculated that a final release would occur before the end of 2012, basing its estimate on the development timetable for IE9. Instead, the browser will apparently launch in 2013. IE10's public feedback website (requires log-in using a Microsoft account) - contains a wide variety of bug reports, hinting that Microsoft still has work to do before shipping a final version.

Google launched the latest beta version of its Chrome browser (version 25) for the desktop and Android and this one is chock-full of new tools for developers. The most important update – and the one that Google chose to highlight – is the inclusion of the Web Speech API in Chrome. This will allow developers to integrate speech recognition into their web apps so that in the near future you’ll be able to talk apps into doing all sorts of things.

Google released the stable version of Chrome 24 yesterday, adding support for IndexedDB for apps that work better offline, mathematics formulas formatted with MathML, and faster JavaScript. The new version also comes with a range of security fixes, including two $1,000 bounties and one $4,000 bounty paid to people who found high-severity vulnerabilities. Because Chrome automatically downloads updates by default in part to patch holes as fast as possible, people just need to restart the browser to update it.

Mozilla on Tuesday shipped its newest browser, Firefox 18, which sports a revamped JavaScript engine and support for Macs with Apple's higher-resolution Retina displays. The open-source developer also patched 28 security vulnerabilities, more than two-thirds of them marked critical, Mozilla's highest threat rating, and revoked digital certificates that were initially thought to be in the hands of cyber criminals.

Microsoft issued a fix for a zero-day vulnerability in older versions of Internet Explorer that could allow attackers to gain control of Windows-based computers to host malicious Web sites. The company confirmed that it was investigating a remote code execution vulnerability in IE 6, IE 7, and IE 8 that could allow an attacker to use the corrupted PC to host a Web site designed to exploit the vulnerability with other users. Versions of the browser after IE 8 are unaffected.

Big changes to Firefox's private mode - the private-browsing feature that turns off recording cookies, history, and temporary files - landed in the Firefox Nightly build. When it reaches the general public a few months from now in Firefox stable, the feature will allow you to run the private-browsing feature in a new window, without closing your regular instance of Firefox.

Yesterday was beta-release day at Mozilla, and the organization is launching new beta versions of Firefox for the desktop and Android. This time around, the desktop version is set to get the most interesting updates, including the new IonMonkey just-in-time JavaScript compiler, as well as support for Macs with Retina displays and W3C Touch Event support for machines with touchscreens. On Android, Firefox now offers better phishing protection and – as an opt-in – search suggestions.

Mozilla engineering manager Benjamin Smedberg has asked developers to stop nightly builds for Firefox versions optimized to run on 64-bit versions of Windows. A developer thread posted on the Google Groups mozilla.dev.planning discussion board, titled Turning off win64 builds by Smedberg proposed the move.

Mozilla just launched the latest stable version of Firefox. This release introduces Firefox’s new Social API with a preview of the first social integration with Facebook Messenger for Firefox. This was previously only available in the Firefox beta channel. The Social API allows social services like Facebook, Twitter, blog networks or even news sites to easily add persistent social sidebars, toolbar notifications and chats to the browser, no matter which site a user is currently looking at.