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Mozilla turns Firefox 4 up to (beta) 11

by Pete Mason on 9 February 2011, 12:06

Tags: Firefox, Mozilla

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In the ongoing quest to squash all of the remaining bugs in Firefox 4 before release, Mozilla has released the 11th beta of its next-gen browser.

Despite being feature-complete since beta 7, this new version introduces the Do Not Track feature that was announced a few weeks ago. Mozilla's implementation works by sending a special header to websites that will tell them that the user doesn't want to participate in online behaviour tracking. The result - assuming that the sites respect the header - is that online adverts won't be personalised based on where you've been surfing.

As well as a whole host of bug fixes, this beta also re-enables WebGL support on Linux, refreshes the default homepage, changes the way connection status messages are shown and prevents the browser from automatically switching into offline mode.

It's expected that Firefox 4 will get at least one more beta before a release candidate and the eventual final release. Although the already delayed browser was scheduled to be finished this month, it's looking increasingly likely that it won't launch until some point in March.

An in-depth look at Mozilla's Do Not Track feature can be found here, and we've already given an overview of Google and Microsoft's approaches in previous stories. For anyone interested in taking Firefox 4 for a spin, the beta can be downloaded for Windows, OS X and Linux from Mozilla, while a full list of changes has been posted on the release notes page.



HEXUS Forums :: 6 Comments

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I miss firefox. Stopped using it since they've disabled Ctrl+E combo. Opera is rubbish at multi monitor/multi window work. IE9 on the other hand is very good in that respect but seriously buggy for everyday use
I don't miss Firefox because I still use it. However I also use Google Chrome.

They offer different features so I tend to use the two browsers for different things. For example: Chrome can move tabs onto a different screen without having to open a separate instance of chrome before hand, very handy for viewing an email and watching a video on 2 different screens(dual screen user). BUT Chrome does not have a No Script extension to block unwanted malware before it even runs on a website. So when I browse sites I am not sure of I switch to Firefox for safety.

I would love to use only 1 browser but I'm not willing to give up either of those features.
Mozilla has been focusing a lot on speed lately. Unfortunately, they have the wrong idea of what “speed” is (at least to me). I couldn't care less about great javascript execution speed if the browser itself is so slow to startup. They need to make the browser lighter and faster to start. And don't be tempted to cheat by pre-loading libraries either. … just my opinion.
latrosicarius
Mozilla has been focusing a lot on speed lately. Unfortunately, they have the wrong idea of what “speed” is (at least to me). I couldn't care less about great javascript execution speed if the browser itself is so slow to startup. They need to make the browser lighter and faster to start. And don't be tempted to cheat by pre-loading libraries either. … just my opinion.

My thoughts exactly. On some days Firefox takes so long to start up i think about moving to chrome.

Luckily for them i never really liked chrome.
ExHail
I don't miss Firefox because I still use it. However I also use Google Chrome.

They offer different features so I tend to use the two browsers for different things. For example: Chrome can move tabs onto a different screen without having to open a separate instance of chrome before hand, very handy for viewing an email and watching a video on 2 different screens(dual screen user). BUT Chrome does not have a No Script extension to block unwanted malware before it even runs on a website. So when I browse sites I am not sure of I switch to Firefox for safety.

I would love to use only 1 browser but I'm not willing to give up either of those features.

In FF you can move tabs to a new window without opening the window first, but possibly you need the tab mix plus add-on.