Thursday, June 23, 2011

Firefox 5 Released, is it better?

New privacy settingsMozilla has released Firefox 5, Sticking to its promise of a quick-release cycle, just three months after Firefox 4 made its debut in March.

According to Mozilla foundation, the Firefox 5 includes more than 1,000 improvements and performance enhancements that make it easier to discover and use all of the innovative features in Firefox. 



So here it is what it has in store:

Firefox 5 allows mobile users to tweak their privacy settings directly from their mobile devices. The settings page is laid out in a way that a user can exactly see which options are on and which are off.

One of the major changes is the ability to enable the Do Not Track feature. This is a feature being used by several new versions of browsers today. It lets you tell a site that you want to opt-out of third-party tracking for behavioral advertising. In Firefox 4 this feature was buried deep in the options -- Options >> Advanced >> General and under Browsing you'd check the option: Tell web sites I do not want to be tracked. Now you just need to go into Firefox Options >> Privacy and under Tracking, check Tell web sites I do not want to be tracked.

Most enhancements and improvements claimed by Mozilla seem to be minor bug fixes according to reviewers. Some significant changes include enhanced support for HTML5 and new support for CSS (cascading style sheet) animations. Firefox 5's user interface is quite similar to Firefox 4.

Some other changes in Firefox 5 are said to include better spell checking in some languages; improved JavaScript, memory and networking performance. 

Firefox 5 offers better Linux desktop integration and improved background tab performance.

Also on-board Firefox 5: The ability to play CSS animations, and the capability to instantly tinker with Firefox add-ons, without slowing down the show or shutting off the browser. 

Mozilla also insures that it can respond quickly to complaints from users, and more easily transform the browser experience to meet consumer need.