Mozilla
Firefox has undergone an enormous rebirth over the past two years. Since Firefox
4 debuted in March 2011, the browser has been hell-bent on improvements. These
have come in large part on the rapid-release cycle, which sees a new version of
Firefox every six weeks. Many people like them, but a vocal minority has
pooh-poohed the increase in version numbers. That's hardly a legitimate
complaint in a world where mobile apps also update silently and effectively,
but the transition for Firefox hasn't been an easy one.
As you
can see, Firefox is on version 19 at the time of this review. As a point of
comparison, Chrome is currently on version 24 even though it launched only in
2008. The benefit of rapid updates, of course, is a browser that is safer and
sleeker, with fewer problems because bugs get fixed on a regular basis.
The
Firefox that you can download now is in the same speed category as its
competition; offers many similar features (stronger in some areas and slightly
weaker in others); includes broad, cross-platform support for hardware
acceleration and other "future Web" tech and standards; and is a must-have for Android
users (download for Android).
Recent
changes have locked down memory leaks caused by add-ons, long browsing
sessions, and heavy tab usage. Mozilla released data showing huge gains in
recovering memory with a shocking 150 tabs open, so you're likely to see big
gains with far fewer. There's also been the introduction of a Social API, for
direct hooks into Facebook. Other social networks like Twitter are in the
works, apparently.
In this
version of Firefox, the browser matches Chrome's built-in PDF reader with one
of its own. If you have a separate PDF-reading add-on for the browser, you can
disable that now.
It's
important to point out that there are four versions of Firefox available at the
moment, and this review only addresses the stable branch, intended for general
use. Firefox's other channels -- Firefox beta (download for Windows | Mac | Linux);
Firefox Aurora, analogous to Google Chrome's dev channel (download Aurora for Windows | Mac | Linux); and
the bleeding-edge, updated-nightly Firefox Minefield
(download for all versions) -- are respectively progressively
less stable versions of the browser, and aimed at developers.
Read more & Download new: Mozilla Firefox @ CNET Download.com http://download.cnet.com/mozilla-firefox/#ixzz2OXPN898e