Hi guys, It’s been a while. I was checking out the latest Firefox browser, version 4, and I thought I would share my thoughts on it with you all.
Browsers have always been the perfect ground for experimentation for me, mostly because its free to try and use and the front runners IE/Opera/Mozilla are always coming up with interesting and innovative improvements on these.
If you have a good browser that suits your needs, nothing beats that. My eyes were set initially on IE9, being the kind of forthcoming reviews and expectation it has. But, alas it was a dud for me. Mostly because of its inability to be compatible to anything other than Windows 7 and higher. I tried with the Vista version of it, but it was a disaster, no flash support and substantially slow, plus you could never try any of its so called features.
Then, i tried out the new Mozilla Firefox 4, and it was indeed what was expected of it. Fast, innovative and really hassle free. The installation was fast, and a really compact installer too. Lets have a look at some of the new changes/improvements made on it.
New Improvements -
1) The improved Home button on the top left corner, was amazingly effective in using all the features at once, unlike FF 3, where the options were scattered among different tabbed buttons.
2) Really fast tabs, and if you have enough system memory, you wouldn’t even notice the changed tabs.
3) The URL bar, now called the "Awesome" bar, was pretty quick and handy in suggesting your favourite/most visited sites.
4) Switch to tab, a fun new inclusion. Basically, if you try to open a website which is already opened in another tab, it instead of opening it again, takes you to the opened tab.
5) Firefox sync, it basically allows you to access/sync your browser history/bookmarks etc on different machines using a sync key. Really thoughtful.
6) Instant website ID - Basically lets you check details about the site you are visiting. You can use/click on the Website icon on the tabs to check it out. (PS - You would be surprised to see, the number of visits you make to the "popular" websites, my Facebook visits were almost nearing 5 figures in a mere six month span :))
7) Dedicated bookmarks/favourites button. A Good inclusion.
8) A new improved "Customize Toolbar", lets you edit toolbar layouts effortlessly.
The usual provisions like "Private Browsing", Add on’s, etc were included of course. Other than this, support for "HTML5", easy to look at design, and some really handy improvements, Firefox 4, works wonders. I for one, found it way better than the earlier Firefox versions, and also IE9, if you are not on Windows 7 or the newer Operating systems.
Couldn’t comment much on the new Flash and HTML5 rendering, but you can check out the demos available on the homepages of these new age browsers. Both IE9 and FF4 have these demo sites set up.
Verdict -
Overall, if you are on a slightly less cutting edge systems, Firefox 4 would be the browser to look for, plus when/if you migrate to a better Operating system, it would still be your best bet.