Browser of choice
A colleague recently tweeted that he was dumping Mozilla Firefox for Google Chrome. Half in jest, I said, “You’ll be back.”
My prediction wasn’t based on any fierce brand loyalty. I too have gone through periods when I stopped using Firefox in favor of Opera, usually because of some annoying bug. After Google finally released a decent Linux version of its much-hyped browser, I dabbled with Chrome, too. Eventually, however, I would always return to Firefox as my browser of choice because a new version would fix the bug and throw in new features that were compelling.
Chrome’s main attraction, of course, is its speed. Fire up Chrome and Web pages seem to pop up almost instantly. Also, as you might expect, Chrome is optimized to run Ajax-based sites such as Gmail and Google Docs really fast.
But Firefox is no slouch, either. The current version, 3.5, is twice as fast as 3.0, 10 times faster than 2.0, and scores decently in most speed tests against other browsers. The next version, 3.6 (codenamed Namoroka, after a national park in Madagascar), is already on its fourth beta, and promises some performance tweaks and features that make it even more interesting.
Over the weekend, I downloaded Namoroka and ran it side by side with Firefox 3.5 on an Ubuntu desktop PC to see what the future release will look like.
The most obvious change in 3.6 is the built-in support for personas, which are lightweight, easy-to-install and easy-to-change “skins” for the browser. Available as an add-on in 3.5, personas enable you to change the way your browser looks with a single click. To browse the more than 37,000 skins now available, simply visit the personas Web site (http://www.getpersonas.com) and pick the look you like. With Firefox 3.6, mousing over a persona previews the skin on your browser; click on the “wear this” button to put the persona on. You can change the Persona just as quickly by picking another one from the gallery, or, you can retrieve your previous choices by going to the “themes” tab of the Add-ons menu. Be forewarned: there are so many choices in the personas gallery that you’re likely to spend more time here than you thought.
Other changes in 3.6 are under the hood.
The Gecko rendering engine has been improved to run faster and be more responsive. JavaScript, too, executes a tad faster on 3.6, although most tests show it is still much slower than Chrome in this regard.
Firefox 3.6 will also alert users about plug-ins that are out of date. This is important because outdated versions of plug-ins can cause crashes and other stability problems, and, as in the case of Adobe Flash, can also be a significant security risk. Starting with 3.6, when you load a Web page that uses an outdated plug-in, you’ll get a warning and a button next to it that helps you update the plug-in.
Speaking to Linux Insider, Redmonk analyst Stephen O’Grady says Mozilla has done a good job responding to Chrome’s speed advantage.
Mozilla has also been continuing to build out user enhancements, O’Grady added, “ranging from the aesthetic —such as personas… to the more subtle, but potentially more significant.”
On the balance, O’Grady describes 3.6 as “a very nice, incremental upgrade”—but more interesting developments are afoot.
One of these is the integration of the Ubiquity add-on, which enables users to issue natural syntax commands to the browser by typing them into the location bar.
Another development to watch is support for Direct2D acceleration, set for Firefox 3.7. which allows the software to make calls directly to the graphics card. This means the browser will be able to use the graphics card instead of the PC processor to render Web pages, which can dramatically speed up browsing.
Although I have tried many browsers, one factor has always led me back to Firefox: the ease with which I can customize it to do what I want.
I have an almost visceral dislike for the minimalist look of Chrome, which hides the traditional menu bar commands behind a few icons. On the other hand, if I really wanted this look, I could get it on Firefox with two add-ons (Chromifox Basic and Chromin Frame).
Given my personal preferences, I dread the day Firefox adopts the menu-less Chrome or Windows 7 look. If that day comes, however, I’m reasonably confident that some like-minded programmer will create an add-on to give me back my menus.