Mozilla Gives Early Look at Firefox 4
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| Source: Mozilla |
Mozilla has been slowly but surely winning over a large portion of Internet users with its free Firefox browser. The company has recently detailed plans for the next installment in the Web browser line: Firefox 4.
Mike Beltzner, Director of Firefox at Mozilla, recently revealed a series of slides containing the roadmap for Firefox 4 and a list of features that the company wants to include. One of the biggest points of emphasis is speed . Mozilla wants to make Firefox 4 "super-duper fast."
The presentation revealed that Mozilla plans to hold a Firefox 4 beta test as early as June and that the full version will be available sometime around the holiday season, 2010.
Firefox has long been lauded for being flexible and customizable, so it's no surprise that a large portion of the presentation doesn't just focus on average users, but on developers as well, the people who make apps and extensions to increase functionality. Mozilla plans to have CSS3 and partial HTML5 compliance built into the new Web browser, which will make app creation easier and faster, especially for mobile sites.
In order to appeal to future tablet users, Firefox 4 will also have multitouch support and a streamlined interface. Other improvements include background updates, geolocation, Firefox Sync (for user data backup) and simpler notifications.
Of course, the presentation also comes with a glaring "Plans Might Change" watermark, so keep in mind that the final feature list may look a little different. Still, it's an ambitious improvement, and it will help Firefox 4 remain among the top-ranked browsers.
