J
Jeff Causey
Guest
A new update for the Firefox Beta app for Android is now available in the Google Play Store. The big new feature is the addition of support for casting the browser’s contents to a Chromecast or Roku device. Firefox had added the Chromecast support to their nightly builds a few weeks ago. Adding it to the beta channel gets the feature that much closer to being available in the production app.
Meanwhile, owners of a Roku device will be glad to see Mozilla is working to add similar streaming capabilities for their hardware. Using the Firefox Beta on Android with a Roku does require installation of the Firefox channel.
The update to Firefox Beta includes a few other improvements as well. An option to clear data when the browser is closed has been added, an undo option for closed tabs, and some new locales have been thrown in.
Note that the support for casting only works with video formats supported by the Firefox Beta browser. Mozilla provided the instructions below if you want to test out the new feature:
To test this feature on Roku or Chromecast, follow these simple instructions:
1. Install Firefox for Android Beta if you haven’t already.
2. Make sure Roku or Chromecast is set-up on a nearby TV and is running on the same WiFi network as your Android phone.
3. If streaming to a Roku, add the Firefox channel to the channel list – instructions from Roku on how to add a new channel are here
4. Go to a site like CNN.com and look for a video on the homepage. Once you start playing a supported video (after any ads have finished playing), the above ‘send to’ icon will appear over the video controls indicating that it can be sent to a nearby streaming device.
5. You can send the video you are watching to a nearby media streaming device by tapping on the video and selecting ‘send to’ from the video controls or touching the ‘send-to’ icon in the URL bar. Both actions will automatically launch the Firefox channel on Roku or activate Chromecast for streaming and send the video to a nearby TV.
To grab the update or install the Firefox Beta app, hit the Google Play download link below.
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