Mozilla corporation finally released the Mozilla Firefox 4, a la mode version of Mozilla Firefox web browser, on 22nd March,2011. Earlier, its beta version was launched on 6th July,2010 which was followed by the release of Release Candidate version on 11th March,2011.
New features
Mozilla Firefox 4 uses minimalist user interface. It can run perfectly on different platforms including Windows,Linux and Mac OS X. It is much faster than previous versions. It features Firefox Panorama which allows the user to organize tabs into windows known as groups. Apart from that is incorporated improved features like door-hanger notifications, redesigned extension manager,multi-touch displays support,Jetpack extensions support.
The new user interface of Mozilla Firefox 4 has been designed to make it run faster. Tabs are placed on the top the Window. A single button,located on the right side of the address bar, performs the function of “stop”,”reload” and “go” buttons. The menu bar is hidden on Windows Vista and Windows 7. The most common actions are moved to the new Firefox menu on the upper left hand corner of the browser. Application tabs can be created and tab bar,navigation bar and bookmarks can be customized by the users.
Technology
Firefox 4 runs on Gecko 2.0 engine. Support to HTML5,CSS3,WebM and WebGL has been enhanced by Gecko 2.0 engine. Apart from that it incorporated new Javascript engines, also known as JagerMonkey and XPCOM APIs. JagerMonkey has been conceived to support Tracemonkey engine. Firefox 3.5 first incorporated Tracemonkey engine. In the latest version its performance has been improved considerably by compiling "non-traceable" JavaScript into machine code for speedier execution.
A new API has been introduced by Firefox 4, which can be used to create and access audio data related to HTML5 audio element. Text layout and shaping is done by Firefox 4 using the layout and shaping engine known as HarfBuzz.
Performance
The performance of Firefox 4 has been enhanced considerably compared to the older versions.HTML5 support also has been improved. Apart from that it enabled hardware acceleration on Windows Vista and Windows 7 machines using Direct2D and on Mac OS X using OpenGL. Hardware acceleration comes handy for the browser to speed up the display of web pages by utilizing the graphics processing unit which lessen the CPU burden.
Drawbacks
It still trails behind Chrome and IE9 on some performance benchmarks. It lacks client-side tracking protection like that of IE9. It lacks Chrome's built in Flash, PDF reader, and Instant search view. It trails behind Chrome in HTML5 support. It does not offer any new-tab page helpers.
Firefox 4 propelled Mozilla back into the game. This lean, fast, customizable browser can hold its own against any rival, and it offers excellent graphics hardware acceleration.
Mozilla Firefox 4 has been launched to a huge reception on 22nd march,2011. As per the Mozilla statistics Firefox 4 was downloaded 7.1 million times. More than 3 million user downloaded the second release candidate before the official launch. So the total number of downloads of Firefox 4 exceeded 10 million mark!
