The Tech Herald

Firefox 4 Beta 7 is 'faster' and 'more fun'

by Steven Mostyn - Nov 12 2010, 06:53

The fiery fox runs faster. Image: psd/Flickr.

Keen to push the coverage and capabilities of its popular Firefox browser, open-source specialist Mozilla is looking to secure yet more ‘test pilots’ via the release of version seven of its Firefox 4 Beta.

If you’re keen on sampling Mozilla’s latest and greatest browsing platform, some of its enhancements include, the JagerMonkey just-in-time (JIT) JavaScript compiler, support for hardware-accelerated graphics, 3D capabilities through WebGL (without plug-ins), Firefox Sync, Panorama, App Tabs and also hardware-acceleration for Windows XP and Mac OS X.

According to Mozilla, the JagerMonkey JIT compiler works in conjunction with the existing TraceMonkey JIT and SpiderMonkey interpreter to deliver faster start-up times, improved page-load speeds, and increased performance via Web apps and games.

“This means pages load faster, interactions with websites are snappier and the Web is just a lot more fun,” outlined Mozilla in an official blog post. “For developers, this means you can build richer high-performance Web applications and explore the world of 3D graphics, inherent to the Web.”

Other developer-specific attributes available through Firefox 4 include, OpenType font features, improved HTML5 form creation, and also the stability of Add-ons application programming interfaces (APIs), which has led Mozilla to recommend that the development community update their Firefox 3.6-compatible Add-ons to support the latest release.

Mozilla ‘test pilots’ already involved with the Firefox 4 Beta will be automatically updated to version seven.

The full and final version of Firefox 4 is expected to arrive during the early part of 2011.

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