Google released a beta of Chrome 32 on Thursday, fulfilling a promise to block many plug-ins and speeding up some tap operations on Android.

And Imgur fans will be eager to know that the new release also brings support for animated WebP images, a feature already added to Google's image format but that had to overcome hurdles before finding a place in Chrome, too. Some advocated for a shift to plain old video, but animated GIFs have attained newfound popularity. Google promises smaller file sizes with animated WebP as an alternative, said Urvang Joshi, the Google programmer who championed animated WebP support for Chrome, in a blog post Thursday.

In September, Google announced that it will ban plug-ins that use the NPAPI technology for interfacing with the browser and giving it extra abilities. The ban doesn't affect Adobe Systems' Flash Player, by far the most widely used plug-in, and will only affect several other widely used plug-ins after a more graceful phase-out period.

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Mozilla executive chair Mitchell Baker speaking earlier this year.

Mozilla has embarked on an expensive new effort to build an entirely new mobile operating system, Firefox OS, despite the dominance of Apple's iOS and Google's Android. It's a good thing Mozilla's got piles of new money on hand.

On Thursday, the nonprofit organization revealed a big upward jump in financial results for 2012, information it discloses to tax authorities. Its revenue increased from $163 million in 2011 to $311 million in 2012, and its net cash from operations increased from $13.4 million to $70.3 million.

Mozilla's money comes chiefly from driving search traffic to partners such as Google that return a portion of the resulting advertising revenue. So why the big increase? Mostly because Mozilla renegotiated its Google deal with more favorable terms, said Mitchell Baker, Mozilla's executive chair and "chief lizard wrangler." About 90 percent of Mozilla's revenue comes from Google, she said.

Baker addressed Mozilla's money, its mobile effort, and more in an interview with CNET's Stephen ... [Read more]