Firefox 9

Like clockwork, another rapid release Firefox version is upon us. In the heady early days of Mozilla's browser, full version updates were watersheds. But now, just as with Google Chrome's, they're incremental. This time the independent, not-for-profit Firefox 9 adds Type Inference (a technique that vastly improves JavaScript speed), better Mac OS X Lion operation and appearance, better "Do Not Track" support, and improved HTML5 standard support. Let's see how the latest from Mozilla stacks up.

Previous releases have brought bigger changes that will be welcomed by many users. With Firefox 8, we got a Twitter search option, more WebGL support, and protection from drive-by add-on installations. Firefox 7 added better use of memory, addressing one of the most common complaints I've heard about Firefox over the past few years. It also sped up startup times, in which Firefox has long trialed competing browsers.

It still holds true that the big interface changes all came along in version 4. Mozilla started emulating Google's Chrome (free, 4.5 stars) Web browser in JavaScript speed and minimalist interface, as competitors Internet Explorer 9 (free, 4 stars) and Opera 11.50 (free, 4 stars) have.

Firefox 9 can nearly match Chrome on JavaScript speed, and holds its own when it comes to HTML5 support and a trimmed down interface that gives the Web page center stage. But when compared side-by-side with Chrome, Firefox falls just a bit short in terms of HTML5 support and whiz-bang features like Chrome Instant, which loads pages from your history before you even finish typing their addresses or search terms in the address bar.

Install
A simple 15MB download gets you the Firefox 9 Windows installer. When you run it you'll lose your old version of Firefox. The latest Firefox is available for Mac (31MB) and Linux (17MB) as well as for Windows 7, Vista, and XP?the last of which even Internet Explorer 9 (Free, 4 stars) can't claim. You can import bookmarks from any other installed browsers on first run, but setup is nearly as uncomplicated as it is for Chrome. Firefox also now makes it easy to choose a search provider other than Google, but surprisingly, not as easy as Chrome does. Recently, though, Mozilla started offering a Firefox for Bing version, which uses Microsoft's Web search built in.

It's more likely that you'll be updated to Firefox 9 automatically, though, since, starting with version 4, Firefox followed Google Chrome in yet another way: by automatically checking for and downloading each new version, and installing it the next time the browser starts. This has the benefit of keeping the majority of users on the latest version. To give the automatic updater a nudge, choose Help>About from the main Firefox menu dropdown.

The first time you run Firefox, you'll see the "Select Your Add-ons" dialog. This is so that you can see any add-ons that may have been installed unbeknownst to you by another app you installed. After this first extension approval, the browser will no longer allow third-party app installations to install Firefox extensions without your approval. On another score, previous updates broke a lot of extensions, so it's good to see this is less of an issue this time around. I didn't have problems with extension compatibility as long as the extension worked in Firefox 7.

Interface
Firefox's latest interface brings it in line with the trend of "less is more"?less space taken up by the browser frame and controls and more space for Web pages. The page tabs have moved above the address bar, and, as with Opera 11.60, there's just a single menu option in the form of the orange Firefox button at top left. You can re-enable the standard menus by hitting the Alt key.

New for Firefox 9 is better integration with Apple's latest desktop operating system, Mac OS X Lion. Mozilla's browser now supports the OS's two- and three-finger swiping gestures for moving between apps and pages in full screen. The theme design now also matches Lion's toolbar and icon stylings.

The Home button has moved to the right of the search bar, and a bookmark button appears to the right of that. That bookmark button only appears when you don't want the bookmark toolbar taking up browser window space. This gives you one-click access to frequently needed Web addresses. But I wish that, like IE's star button, Firefox also let you see recent page history. You can still call up the full bookmark manager, which lets you do things like importing bookmarks from other browsers, search, and organize.

Firefox is one of the last remaining browsers to still use separate address and search boxes, which is good for those who like to keep those two activities separate. That doesn't mean, however, that a search won't work in the address bar, aka the "awesome bar." That tool, which drops down suggestions from your history and favorites whenever you start typing, was pioneered by Firefox and copied by all other browsers. Another tweak is that when one of its suggested sites is already open in a tab, you can click on a "Switch to tab" link, preventing you from opening more tabs unnecessarily?a useful tweak.

As part of its leading extensibility, Firefox has always been the browser most open to allowing different search providers, including specialized search like shopping, reference, or social. It was one of the first to support the OpenSearch format. The other popular browsers now do so, too, but Firefox can automatically detect search services on a page and let you add them from the search bar. With version 8, the social search category was bolstered by the built in addition of a Twitter search, making it easy to follow trending topics or to find Twitter personalities worth following.

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/ziffdavis/pcmag/~3/839o723yZF0/0,2817,2349494,00.asp

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