Mozilla Firefox 4: It Arrives Shortly

The days when Internet Explorer was the most convenient browser to use are long gone. With viruses and worms designed specifically to exploit holes in the Windows operating systems and Internet Explorer, the only browser being recommended for a long time was Firefox. Of late however, the image of Firefox of being a fast, secure and highly customizable browser seems to have been overshadowed by the success of Google Chrome and to some extent Opera. Loyal users and fiery fanboys switched from Firefox to Chrome and Opera. Those unaware of other browsers haven't.

It's still a beta, but not for long

Things went south around a year ago when Firefox started to slow down – both in performance and also in development pace. Many avid users found Google Chrome and Opera to be better alternatives. Chrome didn’t pick up many followers in the very beginning, but extension support acted as a catalyst for Chrome and this only made things worse for Firefox.

Where does Firefox stand now, if Chrome has the edge and is constantly eating away at its share?  Firefox 4 is right around the corner and it has been a long time coming. Development started more than a year ago and we’re currently on Beta 11. There might be another beta version sometime soon, but at this point, there's bound to be little change. Mozilla has added a ton of features to the browser over the months, but most of the HTML5, WebM and WebGL feature additions might make little sense to many of us. Let’s look at some of the drastic changes.

Revamped user interface
You can tell that a software has changed by the way it looks. In the case of Firefox 4, it has changed a lot, but a resemblance to Google Chrome is pretty clear. The design looks slightly different on Windows XP than it does on Windows 7. The new design is more obvious on Windows 7.

A more spacious Firefox with fewer visible toolbars

The title bar has disappeared and the tab bar is visible in place of the Firefox title bar. All this ensures more workspace in the browser window and less for the toolbars. If you need to access the menu bar, it can be quickly activated by the press of the Alt key. Some other changes are visible such as the larger Back and Forward buttons and also the Bookmarks dropdown menu button. Even the status bar at the bottom of the window is smaller, and hidden except when a page loads.

Firefox Sync
Synchronization has been around for a long time in Opera and recently Chrome as well. This feature in Firefox 4 allows you to synchronize all of your bookmarks, preferences, history and tabs to an online account. It can then be accessed on other Firefox installations. Before Sync came along, the most popular add-on that had similar functionality was Foxmarks or Xmarks, as it was later known as. Accessing your bookmarks on a work PC or a laptop will be much simpler for sure.