14 DAY TRIAL // The fourth beta development milestone of the next generation of Firefox sports new features, which have been cooking for some time in the nightly Builds of the open source browser.
Essentially, Firefox 4.0 Beta 4 is designed deliver a taste of the new enhanced level of control that end users will have over their web experiences.
“This release lets you own and control your personal Web experience by syncing your data across devices, and by helping you organize your tabs in order to juggle and prioritize your busy online life,” promises Mike Beltzner, Mozilla’s Director of Firefox.
Softpedia readers have already been able to read about the new synchronization capabilities, as well as the new Tab Candy and Tab Sets feature in Firefox 4.0 Beta 4.
The latest Beta Build of Firefox 4.0 new features Sync by default, and the evolution of Tab Candy / Tab Sets, which has been labeled Panorama.
Here is what’s new in Firefox 4.0 Beta 4 according to Mozilla’s release notes for the Build:
"- Firefox Sync is now included by default.
- A new feature gives users a visual overview of all open tabs, allowing them to be sorted and grouped.
- An experimental API is included to provide more efficient Javascript animations.
- Firefox now supports the HTML5 video "buffered" property.”
Beltzner opted to highlight the new Sync and Panorama features ahead of anything else. With Firefox Sync users can now make sure that their bookmarks, history, Awesome Bar, passwords, form-fill data and open tabs will be accessible to them independent of the device they’re running, via the Cloud.
“Now, with Firefox Sync, you can customize and take your Web experiences with you anywhere, even on your iPhone with Firefox Home,” Beltzner said.
“Firefox Sync encrypts all of your data before sending it to the server and does not track your travels throughout the Web. This means that you never have to compromise your privacy for the convenience of using Firefox Sync".
“When downloading or updating to the latest version of the Firefox 4 beta, you will automatically be prompted to create a Firefox Sync account.”
At the same time, Mozilla is revolutionizing the way in which users administer a vast number of opened tabs.
Of course, the constant increase in opened tabs that end users are dealing with is ultimately a reflection of the burgeoning volume of activities that they handle daily on the web. This is where Panorama comes in.
“When tabs were first introduced, the feature changed the way people browse the Web. To continue the tab revolution, the beta now includes Firefox Panorama (formerly Tab Candy) as a new approach to tab management that makes it easy to organize and multi-task while on the Web,” Beltzner added.
“If you juggle many open tabs for work, shopping, music, social sites, vacation planning and more, you can easily group and prioritize those tabs any way you want. With one keystroke you can see an overview of all tabs to quickly locate and switch between tabs or groups of tabs.”