The browser wars heated up to a fiery orange glow Tuesday with Mozilla’s release of Firefox 4. Like Internet Explorer 9, Opera 11 and Chrome 10 before it, Firefox 4 has reduced the volume and become a simple, mean sailing machine armed with ninja speed and agility. It still has a Firefox feel to it, but with some big and much-needed changes in the UI and performance departments. The transformation is so complete that Mozilla seems to have given up on the sudden onslaught of the competition in the form of IE9. It may even trump Chrome 10, but that battle needs to be watched closely.
The changes in version 4 are many, widespread, and far exceed those of recent updates. Since Firefox 3 was released in 2008 and the latest version 3.6 arrived in January 2010, this update is long overdue. From looks to security to graphics, here’s everything you need to know about Firefox 4.
User interface
big bar
No longer just a place to type a URL, the address bar, dubbed the “Awesome Bar” by Mozilla, has been redesigned to serve as Firefox 4’s command center. From here, users can easily access the pages they’ve visited and previously checked, and even open tabs and windows currently. Like Opera 11, Firefox 4 has kept both the address bar and the dedicated search field. (IE9 and Chrome only have one dual-purpose field for both URL and search.) Some might think that Mozilla should have abandoned their two-field system. But with all the various functions that Awesome Bar already performs, a dedicated search field seems like a wise move.
card design
The way Firefox 4 handles tabs is key to its user interface improvements. Like all of its major competitors, Firefox 4’s tabs now appear above the address bar (Awesome Bar), search bar, and other control buttons. This is a definite improvement over previous versions of Mozilla’s browser, both in terms of usability and appearance, which are now as simple and uncluttered as the rest. However, if you prefer the old tab look, just click the menu button in the top corner, select “options” and uncheck “tabs on top”.
go to tab
Tab management takes center stage in Firefox 4, starting with the new “Switch to Tab”. One of three new tab management features included in this update, Switch To Tab allows users to access already open tabs simply by typing in the address bar. If the website you’re looking for is already open in another tab, the option will appear at the top of the dropdown list, along with the bookmarked and historical items. Click and you have switched to the desired tab.
This feature works usefully with tabs open in other Firefox windows, as well as the one you’re working on. And it significantly reduces the time it takes to find a particular card when there are a lot of widows and open cards.
Our tests revealed that Switch to Tab performed admirably, most of the time. The only site Switch to Tab didn’t work for was Twitter.com, which only displayed as a history item, not a tab. In all other cases, the function worked without errors.
application tabs
The next most powerful tab feature is “Application Tabs”. This feature allows users to easily reduce the size of “pinned” tabs, which are then placed unobtrusively to the far left of the tab bar. While the tabs in the app can be used with any open tab, this feature is designed for the sites you keep open throughout the day, such as Pandora, Twitter, or Gmail.
If, for example, you keep Reddit on all the time, just right-click on an open Reddit tab and select “Set as App Tab”. The tab will instantly shrink to a fraction of its size and conveniently move out of the way, but still be available for quick access.
From what we can tell, this simple yet handy feature works exactly as advertised. As with all tab management updates that come with Firefox 4, this is most useful when you have a large number of tabs open at once.
Panoramic Tab Grouping
When you’re working with a particularly large number of tabs open (think 100+), the new “Panorama” feature can greatly simplify the logistics of working with so many tabs. Originally released as a test plugin called “Tab Candy”, the “Panorama” feature gives users the ability to group tabs into manageable groups that can be easily named, arranged and edited.
To activate Panorama, right-click on any tab, then select “Move to Group”, where you can select “new group” at the start of a new session, or select a group you’ve already created.
Customize the navigation or bookmarks toolbar to include the Tab Group icon, which automatically places all tabs open in a window in a group and launches a panoramic view, where you can navigate from one group to another, move and change the size of group icons, and rename and edit groups
Heavy card users will love Panorama for its great utility, and it looks and works great. But its somewhat complicated workflow could prevent the feature from being widely used. Of course, a few tweaks and updates could fix all of that.
menu button
One particularly notable default change in the Windows version of Firefox 4 is the “Firefox button,” or browser menu, which has been reduced to a small orange button that appears in the top left corner of the browser. The new menu button almost matches the menu button found in Opera 11. Chrome and IE9, on the other hand, have their own more discreet menu buttons on the right.
Mozilla has reduced the open menu window to a short two-column block, containing all the functionality of the Firefox menu bar from the past. Here you can quickly access some of the most used options such as plugins, toolbar customization, and bookmarks.
So far, the redesigned menu bar seems like a huge improvement over the previous version, which looked unnecessarily complicated after using the new button. Users who want to compare themselves can simply go back to the classic menu bar.
Other button changes include “stop” and “refresh” which are packaged into a single icon integrated into the right side of the Awesome bar. The bookmarks button has also been redesigned.
Accessories
Mozilla is making a big push for add-ons and customizations with Firefox 4. The update includes a redesigned add-on manager, making it easy to discover the more than 200,000 add-ons now available, as well as add custom skins, or “characters.” ” as Mozilla likes to call them. And now that you don’t need to reboot to install plugins, trying new plugins is basically easy. Users can now view and manage third-party add-ons in Firefox 4 as well.
Security
New security additions include “Instant Website ID”, which provides users with personal analytics about websites, such as how many times they have visited a particular website or if they have saved their password there, designed to help users to identify if they should trust a particular domain. “Do Not Track” allows users to block websites from installing cookies, which track users’ browsing habits to sell to advertisers. And the slightly annoying “Forget This Site” feature deletes all evidence of the site on your computer.
Silent Bells and Whistles:
Unfortunately, Firefox 4 didn’t just get faster by magic. Firefox 4 runs the Gecko 2.0 rendering engine. This includes an emerging web standard, WebGL, which displays graphics in 3D. Firefox also includes the new JagerMonkey Java Script engine, HTML 5 support, and new hardware-accelerated graphics for faster video and other graphic-rich web content.
Web developers also got a ton of tools, including greatly improved CSS3 support and fancy fonts, among others.
Firefox 4 also offers support for HD and 3D video, drop protection, and multi-touch for Windows 7. Firefox Sync allows the user to synchronize tabs, passwords, history, and bookmarks across multiple mobile computers and PCs.
speed up
The most notable difference between Firefox 3.6 and 4 is speed. Mozilla claims that the browser is “six times faster” than previous versions. However, it’s less obvious how Firefox 4 stacks up against the new generation of competing browsers.
We did a very unscientific cross-browser test loading Yahoo.com, Facebook (dash page), Gmail (full inbox load), and Digital Trends. Each page was loaded three times. The times given represent the average of those three page loads. The test was done with a stopwatch on an iPhone, so all the numbers here will be slow. After all, your examiner’s fingers aren’t as fast as a computer, regardless of “Danger!” may have made you believe.
Here are the results:
| firefox 4 | internet explorer 9 |
chrome 10 |
opera 11 |
|
 |
 |
 |
 |
|
|
yahoo |
3.4 seconds |
3.36 seconds |
2.83 seconds |
1.83 seconds |
|
|
2.86 | 1.4 |
3.9 |
2.03 |
|
gmail |
4.13 |
3.66 |
4.13 |
3.36 |
|
digital trends |
3.53 |
3.9 |
3.53 |
2.83 |
Based on our test, Firefox 4 is as fast as any (except perhaps Opera 11, which was fastest in all but one test). Chrome 10 beat Firefox 4 in every test. And while IE9 loaded the Facebook dashboard much faster than any other browser, Firefox 4 beat it in half the time.
However, real-life usage tells a different story than testing. Although the two browsers ranked almost equally, Firefox 4 seemed much faster than IE9, although it seemed to lag a bit behind Chrome and Opera. Activities like switching between tabs were much smoother in Mozilla’s browser. And web apps like Google Docs worked better with Firefox than IE9.
Conclusion
Firefox 4 is so beautifully polished that there’s little not to like. It may not be the fastest browser on the market, but with a wide variety of compelling extra features, intuitive controls, and enough power and speed to help you complete any task, it’s generally the most enjoyable browser to use.
For speed lovers: yes, Chrome 10 still wins the race (as does Opera). Fortunately for Mozilla fans, the company says it plans to drastically increase its release schedule and deliver three more major updates this year. If Mozilla can do that, then it has a chance to stay in the overall lead.
Also check out our Internet Explorer 9 review.
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Categories: GAMING
Source: newstars.edu.vn