Mozilla today bumped up Firefox Aurora, the pre-beta release channel of the popular browser, to version 23. With this, it is introducing a number of new tools for developers that will now slowly make their way into the stable release channel over the next few months. Sadly (or maybe not), this is also the first version of Firefox that does away with the good old <blink> element, a former staple of the horrid GeoCities websites of the 90s.
On the user-facing side of things, this Aurora release also includes support for Firefox’s Mixed Content Blocker, which should keep users a bit safer when sites contain both HTTP and HTTPs resources. For Mac users, it includes new animations for swipe navigations and — finally — support for OSX 10.7’s new scrollbar style.
The focus of this release is clearly on developers, though. Firefox Aurora now features a new network monitor that provides a standard waterfall timeline view of network activity on any given page. This data has always been available, but only through the Web Console, which wasn’t very easy to interpret.
Also new in this version is a Remote Style Editor, which allows developers to test their web apps over a remote protocol in real time. Mozilla says the Editor should be compatible with Firefox for Android 23, which is also coming to the Aurora channel soon, and the team is working on incorporating some aspects of this technology into the Firefox OS simulator.
Other new tools include a new preference menu dedicated to the developer tools, as well as a first implementation of SourceMap Support and changes to the Object Inspector.
You can find a full list of changes here.