The Firefox web browser has featured prominently in the browser wars of the past decade, and the latest incarnation of our furry friend, version 4, is tentatively scheduled for a late-February launch. What might make you want to upgrade if you currently use Internet Explorer, Chrome, Safari or any other browser?
Let’s look at some of the individual “game changing” reasons why you might consider upgrading.
Speed
Firefox 4 improves over the speed of Firefox 3 in a number of different areas. They have rebuilt the javascript engine from the ground up, giving noticeable performance improvements specifically on script intensive sites such as Gmail.
Not only have the rendering times improved, but the overall speed of the browser was a major goal of this version. Your 3D graphics card is also used to assist in rendering web pages. On an older computer, I had given up using Firefox 3 because of the slowness of it – Chrome was the only way I found to speed up browsing. Loading Firefox 4 on this machine gives me at least anecdotal evidence that the speed of the browser itself has improved greatly; and it is now bearable even on older systems.
Security
The new Firefox 4 organizes Javascript programs into compartments, further proving that Firefox takes your security concerns seriously. Moving away from Internet Explorer to just about any browser is an improvement over your personal security, but Firefox 4 has taken this to another level.
Since Firefox 4 is open source, the codebase is available for review by anyone. As with any web browser security flaws are often found and fixed – but since Firefox is more open about this I give them an edge over Internet Explorer or Safari.
The Cloud
Firefox 4 now integrates ‘cloud’ synchronization of bookmarks, passwords, preferences, history and tabs. If you choose to use this function you can have the above synchronized between Firefox browsers on different computers – and that includes Firefox on Android and iOS devices.
HTML5 Support
We have seen some of the cool things you can do with HTML5 and Firefox 4 supports these just as with many other new browsers. One thing that Firefox will do that the others can not (as of yet) is the Indexed DB function which is related to offline storage of online data.
To see browser HTML5 capabilities compared check out HTML5 readiness.
Privacy
The private browsing option, which is a mode where your history, clicks and cache are not saved; now takes a more prominent place in the Firefox tab ecosystem. The Firefox team has also taken it upon themselves to fix a privacy flaw in CSS which let sites know which other sites you had been visiting.
This, along with the great Security and Privacy addons available for Firefox, make it one of the most privacy capable browsers currently available.
New Looks
Tab groups, a new UI, and other small enhancements have refreshed the Firefox interface. In my opinion, it has finally moved away from its Mozilla days and have entered a new era. It is minimalist, using all available space at the top to let your web pages take up the maximum amount of screen.
Tabs can also be pinned to the opened tab list, turning them into permanent App Tabs.
Addons
Firefox (and Mozilla before it) have always had the best plugins available anywhere. Firefox 4 is no different, and many major addons are already compatible with version 4. Firefox’s wide range of addons give you the ability to do just about anything with the browser, from adding extra security to turning it into a kid-friendly experience.
Summary
Firefox 4 is a pretty big advancement over the old versions. There are tons of smaller features that are also in this version and from what I saw of beta 9 it is almost ready for release and is perfectly stable. If you want to be ahead of the curve, check out Firefox 4 beta today and keep an eye out for the final release towards the end of February 2011!
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