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Today Mozilla made Firefox 30 available, a relatively minor release after the massive redesign in version 29. According to the changelog, new features include VP9 video decoding, support for Opus in WebM, and horizontal volume control for HTML5 video and audio. Developers got support for multi-line flexboxes and hang reporting for background threads. There were also a number of security fixes. The Android version of Firefox received better support for native text selection, cutting, and copying, as well as predictive lookup for Awesomebar entries. The availability of Firefox 30 coincides with the launch of Firebug 2.0, which features an updated UI and a new debugging engine called JSD2. Significant new features include JavaScript syntax highlighting and de-minifying, improved code auto-complete, and the capability to hide or show individual Firebug panels.

netux writes to mention that Opera has released Dragonfly, their answer to Firebug, as an open source project under the BSD license. The release features a complete architectural overhaul using a modern version of the Scope Protocol (STP-1), a Mercurial repository on BitBucket, and a Wiki to get the ball rolling. "This is Opera’s first full open source project, so there will be a learning curve. We ask you to bear with us while we get everything up and running and policies in place. Coming from a closed source background there are some hurdles to overcome, such as the current bug tracking system being on a closed server. We hope to migrate to an open bug tracking system as the project gets on its feet."

An anonymous reader writes "Although some have raised concerns about how sane switching to Jetpack is, it seems that Mozilla's new gadget is bound to replace the powerful extension mechanism we know. Maybe Mozilla wants to replace all the great add-ons we use daily with gadgets that add an entry to the Tools menu, or maybe they just want to draw thousands of inexperienced developers into putting together a bunch of HTML and CSS that won't integrate in the UI. It seems to me that in light of recent decisions we've discussed before, Mozilla isn't going in the right direction. What do you think ?"