The very first Firefox 4 public beta made a surprise splash online last night, giving the world’s most popular Internet Explorer rival its biggest update in two years. Naturally we grabbed it to give it a go just as soon as, and we’re willing to bet plenty of you have too – so how are you finding it?
It’s hard to believe it’s almost been a year since we got a first glimpse of what Firefox 4 might look like, but now the very first beta is here and available for anyone to download by heading over to www.mozilla.com/en-US/firefox/beta and installing.
The new features in Firefox stretch from support for Google’s new streaming video format, WebM, to extended HTML5 and CSS3 support, and single tab crash protection so Flash going AWOL on one page won’t take down your whole browser.
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The most obvious change will be a visual one however, especially for Windows users. Tabs get a new look, and on Windows, a new positioning at the top, just below a minimalist Firefox options button. Mozilla says the same design feature will come to Firefox 4 on Mac and Linux soon, and all three will get integrated Sync to move your bookmarks, settings and history around with you by keeping them in the cloud.
We’ve been testing out the Firefox 4 beta on OS X and though it’s an initial release, with bugs expected, we’re not seeing any yet and have had no crashes or hiccups. Things seem pleasantly nippy, although moving tabs around still isn’t nearly as fluid as on Google Chrome. Our favourite new feature though is a simple one: the URL/search bar seems to be a lot speedier, a relief after seeing it visibly slowdown moving to Firefox 3.5, then 3.6.
What do you make of Firefox 4 so far though? Are you seeing any strange happenings? Are your add-ons not working properly? Let us know what your thoughts on it so far are in the comments below, as well as your favourite new features, and hit that link to download it if you feel like you’re missing out.
Out Now | £free | Mozilla
