Vicky's Zone

Mozilla has released Firefox 4 Beta 1, apparently, in a move to tackle an incoming threat from Google Chrome, which seems to be climbing high in the browser market at Mozilla’s expense. However, the official release is anticipated only at the end of this year.
It was announced that the beta includes a dozen of major features and improvements. One of these is the browsing tabs that have been moved to the top (this may not be in the case of Mac though) to enable users to focus on the contents. For Windows 7 and Vista users, the menu bar at the top (in earlier versions) has been replaced with a single Firefox button that has the menus. Altogether, the UI is cleaner now.



A few takeaways from the new version are:

• New Add-on manager that will make the task of customizing your browser a child’s play
• Watch HD quality videos on Youtube and other sites with the new WebM feature
• You can now be sure of a better privacy for your browsing history
• Run the latest and best web apps with the HTML5 support
• Build real-time, online interactions like gaming and chatting using WebSocket
• Ultimately, a faster browsing experience
• The first thing after I downloaded Firefox 4 was that it was super light and fast. But then I immediately I realized that all the Add-ons were disabled.
• I tried to check if I could enable all the add-ons and then check Firefox for speed but all Add-ons currently were incompatible with Firefox 4 beta.
• That apart I was quite happy with the new look of Firefox 4 which does give that Chrome’s neatness but with a Firefox identity.

Being the first beta, there could be many issues with the features. And all of these, for sure, are not going to be there in the final release unless they work fine. As such, a lot of testing and feedback are still required. Given the new features, it could possibly become the ultimate browser of the world.  What is your take on this?

You can download Firefox 4 Beta 1 here.
Download Firefox 4