Mozilla has recently released the fourth beta of the Firefox 4 browser. I have been testing it since the first beta and I am happy to see the progress and the addition of new features with each beta. I have held on the review of Firefox 4 because most of the features are still unstable or not in place. With the release of beta 4, things are becoming more stable and plenty of new (and revolutionary) features are added to it, so it would be a great time to do up a review. There will probably be another one or two more beta before we see the release candidate and the final version. /> id="more-20478">

New Interface

Firefox 4 has gone through a big design change. The first thing that you will notice is the replacement of the menu bar with a menu button (currently only available in WIndows and Mac version). The new big orange menu button is located on the very top left corner of the browser, and when clicked, will open up a compact menu window. While I don’t really like the orange color and the location that it is situated, I do welcome the idea of replacing the menu bar with the button. It makes the browser more clean and compact.

This week has produced some fantastic Firefox news. That's a good thing, but because we covered it all on Download Squad in a timely fashion, it leaves me with a bit of a problem: there's no new news to share with you. I've been left with producing a round-up for this week's Firefox column. I've never done a round-up before, but I'm sure it'll be good.

I think I'm meant to take each nibble of news and provide a refreshing, opinionated point of view that throws it into a new light. Let's start with one that got a lot more interest than we anticipated:

1. Firefox 4 Beta 5 will feature a two-column main menu

I think I actually told Lee that this one wasn't worth posting..., how wrong I was!
"It's like one of those Google-search-box-grows-by-18-pixels stories." Personally, I hate Chrome's unified wrench menu, and I'm disheartened to see it make an appearance in Firefox.

Previously we have discussed how to perform a country specific search using any search engine. This involves filtering search results from a specific country which can be useful in certain situations. We have also seen how to perform language specific search on the web. In this tutorial we are going to learn how to use different search engines to perform a site specific search.

By site specific search I mean that you can use a search engine to find content from a specific blog, website or forum. Sometimes you may want to search a popular blog for some tutorial and it’s not always very comfortable to open blogs in different tabs and use their search box to find the content you are looking for.

Instead, you can search any website from Google, Yahoo or Bing. The advantage is that you can filter all the posts that match with specific keywords directly from a search engine. /> id="more-20055">

Using a web browser’s keyboard controls can speed up web surfing significantly. But most web browsers limit those keyboard shortcuts, and do not offer options to add additional hotkeys to speed up specific operations that are not supported by default.

Vimium is a Google Chrome extension that adds a few dozen keyboard controls to the browser to speed up web surfing.

The controls become available directly after installation, and can be used to achieve various goals in the Google browser.

It is for instance possible to press h, j, k or l to scroll left, down, up or right, press gg to automatically scroll to the top, or Shift-G to reach the bottom of the active page.

More useful than those commands that are already available, albeit set to different keys are the additional options that are provided by Vimium

Chrome users with Vimium installed can press t to open a new tab, d to close the active tab, u to restore the last closed tab and Shift-J or Shift-K to navigate quickly between tabs.

That’s just a sample of the possibilities that the extension offers. Other commands of interest are Shift-H, and Shift-L, that allow to go back or forward in history. This especially is useful for users who usually right-click to do that, as the right-click menu does not always offer that functionality.

The key r reloads the current page, and y copies the url to the clipboard.

A complete list of commands is available at the Google Chrome Extensions gallery page. It is possible to pause the extension by pressing i, which ignores all hotkeys until Esc is hit.

Vimium can speed up standard web surfing processes in the Chrome browser. Firefox find in Vimperator a similar extension for their browser.

Filed under: Mozilla, Browsers, Op-Ed

I'm stoked about Firefox 4; I think many of us are. It's a beautiful browser, and with the addition of Tab Candy (now "Panorama") it's even cooler.

Whenever Mozilla release a new version of Firefox, add-ons break. It's routine, nobody's overly worked up about it by now. The Mozilla add-ons site is littered with yesteryear's great extensions, including such crowd pleasers as Hit-a-Hint which has not been updated since 2007.

Okay ... so with every iteration, some add-ons get left behind, and some are updated by their creators and live on. That's just how the system works, right?

In a move that is surely an effort to keep pace with Firefox's helter-skelter development of Jetpack, Chrome Beta now has a context menu API!

There's also a bunch of other new APIs, the most exciting being the Omnibox API. Imagine Chrome's built-in search engines (type 'Amazon', then a space, and then a book name -- it searches Amazon!), but with extension access. Type the name of an extension into the Omnibox, and then any further input is redirected to the extension. Actually, having said this is an exciting addition, I'm really not sure what an extension would do with it... Perhaps something Ubiquity-esque?

The new Infobar API might be of interest, too. You know that blue bar that appears when Chrome asks you whether you want a page to be translated? Well, extensions can now pop those up for you. I can see security and privacy extensions like LastPass making use of them, or an extension that alerts you when a page you're visiting has an 'official Chrome extension' (you know, instead of that awful JavaScript hack...).

Oh, and if you make an extension (featuring the new APIs? It's not clear), let Google know and they might send you a free Chrome hoodie! Hooray.

Tab Candy for Firefox isn't even officially out yet, and there's already a Chrome competitor; TabSense presents you with a list of your current browser tabs, divided by window.

It gets points for effort, but at this stage, TabSense definitely feels half-baked. Clicking the name of a tab doesn't actually activate it, but it detaches it from its current group (window). Dragging tabs from group to group does work, though, and it causes the tab to move between windows, which is pretty cool. The extension doesn't pop up a whole bunch of Chrome windows. Instead, you see only one window, and all of the others are hidden. That's nice, too.

There's a quick-search box in the top-right corner, which allows you to search tabs by name, and it does work (it highlights the tab that you're looking for). There are no thumbnails. Also, the groups are temporary and were not saved when I quit Chrome.

The main problem at the moment is with activating tabs; I was unable to actually show the tab that I tried to access. As I said, clicking it didn't work. But still, this alpha-grade extension shows some promise, even if it lacks most of Tab Candy's "wow" factor.

Yesterday we set out to find the most pixel-friendly browser on Windows machines. Today, designer and Lifehacker reader Kyle Dreger took it upon himself to determine which OS X browser makes the best use of your precious screen space. More »

Firefox 4 Beta is out with a revamped UI, Google Chrome continues to gain popularity, and Opera has a slick new version. Let's take a look at which browser uses your screen the best without wasting space. More »

Firefox/Chrome: If you spend a lot of time on YouTube, you've probably noticed the new Autoplay bar that pops up on the bottom of your screen with recommended videos—and here's how to get rid of it. More »

Hello! I'm back [at the turn of the tide...] To celebrate, here's a very neat Chrome extension that mimics (albeit a bit clumsily) Firefox's live bookmarks: Foxish live RSS.

If you've never used Firefox's live bookmarks, you're missing out! They're just like normal website bookmarks, but using the magic of RSS they update every few minutes. For the vast majority of Web users, a dedicated RSS reader is overkill -- with live bookmarks you can have the latest news (or Download Squad stories!) right there on your browser, always just one click away.

Foxish live RSS isn't without its quirks. It can't auto-discover a site's RSS feed, so you have to obtain it (either by viewing the source, or installing Google's own RSS extension) and then add it manually by right clicking the odd-looking Foxish icon. Also, once you've added the feed, you have to go into your Bookmarks Manager and drag the new 'folder' onto your bookmarks bar.

So, it's clunky but it works. You have to wonder when Google will simply bite the bullet add native, live bookmark functionality. Firefox has surely borrowed enough Chrome features... now it's time to return the favor!

TabSense is a Firefox Tab Candy inspired extension that allows you to group your tabs into separate categories.

Install, click on the icon or simply press Shift+Ctrl+S and you are ready to go.

Future versions are also set to include tab movement, search and other features.

Filed under: Features, Mozilla, Browsers

As Sebastian is still in Montenegro, I will be presenting you with today's Firefox Friday Five. I know you guys miss him, but fret not - he's due back around Tuesday, so next week's installment shall indubitably be British in style and flavour. For now, though, you're stuck with me -- so buckle up and enjoy the ride!

This week we've seen two pretty exciting releases from Mozilla, plus one aimed at developers, as well as a great add-on and a Greasemonkey script to round it all off. Read on for the details!

1. Firefox 4 Beta 2 hits the interwebs:

Filed under: Mozilla, Browsers

Firefox 4 Beta 2 was just released, and you can grab it from the Beta page.

Every tab now has a "Make into App Tab" command in the context menu, which shrinks the tab down to just the favicon and puts it on the leftmost position (similar to Chrome's pin tab feature). Also, tabs on top have arrived in the Mac version. I couldn't test it myself - share your thoughts in the comments, Mac users!

Mozilla made a snazzy video showing App Tabs, which you can watch after the jump.

Filed under: Browsers, Op-Ed

Firefox is doing a lot of usability-related work recently. And really, it now sports a fairly usable UI. It's kind of sluggish at times, but it is my browser of choice, mainly for political reasons.

But one thing never fails to piss me off ... why does the Find function have to be so bad?

Many people use large monitors these days (and often, more than one). This means that we often have a large mass of text all over the screen, but we want to find just a single word. This is a common function, and both Opera and Chrome have taken major strides in order to make it usable.

Yup, you're not alone: that orange button in the top left corner of Firefox 4.0 just won't move.

Fortunately, with the help of a Neowin forum thread and a little hacking, I am now the proud owner of a see-through Firefox button that's in-line with my tabs! If you'd also like to move that orange button -- or simply change its color! -- follow these easy steps:

• Locate your Profile directory -- click Help > Troubleshooting Information and then Open Containing Folder
• Now navigate to the Chrome directory
• Copy userChrome-example.css
• Rename your copy to userChrome.css
• Open userChrome.css your editor of choice and dump the following code in it:

#appmenu-button-container {

position: fixed !important;

}

 

#appmenu-button {

padding: 3px 18px 3px 18px !important;

margin-top:3px !important;

background-color: rgba(54, 121, 166, 0.2) !important;

}

 

#navigator-toolbox[tabsontop="true"] #TabsToolbar {

padding-left: 95px !important;

}

 

#navigator-toolbox[tabsontop="true"] #TabsToolbar {

padding-left: 105px !important;

padding-top:1px !important;

padding-right:98px !important;

}

Alternatively, download my userChrome.css file and copy it into the directory. Don't forget to rename it.

The second block (#appmenu-button) is the most important. You could easily change the color (54, 121, 166) or the opacity (0.2) -- simply change the values, save, and restart Firefox 4.0.

With some knowledge of CSS you could also move the button around (padding and margin), but I'll investigate more tomorrow. In the mean time, enjoy your less intrusive Firefox 4.0 menu!

(Incidentally, if you missed the previous post, Firefox 4.0 beta 1 is now available for download!)

Even though Google Chrome is faster and lesser prone to crash, it is still NOT the default browser in Ubuntu. At least until Ubuntu Lucid, Firefox still reign in Linux arena.

Now, if you have installed Google Chrome and intend to use it as the default browser, won’t it be great if you can set it as the default application for all web links so that your Firefox won’t pop up annoyingly?

In Ubuntu Lucid, you can easily change the default application by going to System -> Preferences -> Preferred Applications. Under the “Internet” tab and “Web Browser” section, select “Google Chrome” in the dropdown list.

Close the window. That’s it.

In situations where you can’t find Google Chrome in the dropdown option (and you are sure that you have installed it), choose custom from the dropdown list and enter

/opt/google/chrome/chrome

Following on from last night's IE9 vs. Chrome 6 comparison, I've now pitched all four of the major Windows-based browsers against each other. On the same computer! At the same time! (God bless technology.)

As you will see from the video, Chrome (even with hardware acceleration turned on via command line switches) is in a distant last place, miles behind both Firefox and IE. Opera competes well up to a point, but eventually gives way to Firefox and IE with 1000 fishies swimming about.

I state in the video that Opera is hardware accelerated, but I could be wrong (we've confirmed that they have hardware acceleration devs on staff, but don't know what's under Opera's hood just yet). Chrome also performs very poorly, even though it (apparently) has hardware acceleration. Incidentally, if you want to turn on hardware acceleration in Firefox 3.7, follow this guide.

Both Firefox and IE9 use Direct2D to utilize the GPU's rendering power -- so it's probably no surprise that they both show very similar results. It's most apparent when comparing CPU use; IE9 and FF3.7 are both miles ahead in performance, but both show the lowest CPU utilization!

Still, I'm certain Chrome will feature full hardware acceleration soon enough. The thing I'm most interested in is whether we'll see cross-platform hardware acceleration. Direct2D doesn't exist on either Mac or Linux -- so we'll see how it pans out! Meanwhile, if anyone wants to pit Opera or Chrome against Firefox on Linux, I'd be very interested to see the results.