Firefox's plans for 2012: Silent updates, sharing on social networks

The Firefox web browser for 2012 is expected to come with new and improved features.

STORY HIGHLIGHTS

• Part of the plans Mozilla mentions have already been achieved in Firefox 10 and 11
• Silent updates is a feature that is planned for Firefox 13
• Users will be able to share links to a variety of social networks directly from their browser

(Mashable) -- After releasing a new version of its browser, Firefox11, the Mozilla foundation has laid out its plans for 2012, and there are definitely some interesting things in the works for one of themost popular web browsers out there.

Part of the plans Mozilla mentions have already been achieved in Firefox 10 and 11. To resolve problems with old add-ons not working in (now very frequently released) new versions of the browser, they were made compatible by default. Also, from Firefox 11 you can now also sync add-ons across several computers.

However, the full Firefox roadmap reveals several other important updates planned for later in 2012.

One that caught our attention is silent updates, which will be downloaded and installed silently in the background, without the need for user intervention. This feature is planned for Firefox 13.

Another interesting feature coming later in 2012 is the ability to share links and updates to a variety of social networks directly from the browser. We've seen products such as (now discontinued) Flocktry to integrate social networking directly into the browser, but none have been able to catch a significant market share.

Which of Mozilla's plans for Firefox do you like, and which seem like bad ideas to you? Are there any features you'd like to see in the next iterations of Firefox? Share your opinions in the comments.