14 DAY TRIAL // As coincidence would have it, Mozilla and Google both released beta versions of their browsers on the same day. This after both announcing a few days earlier a new browser engine they are working on. And, like Chrome, the new Firefox 21 beta won't rock anyone's world.
There are several interesting new features inside, though. Firefox now adds a more detailed and more appropriate three-state Do Not Track in the preferences.
Firefox itself already had three states for the DNT header, but users could only select between two of them.
The change adds more control to users, though Do Not Track is largely useless even now, years after it was introduced.
The main parties involved still haven't reached any sort of understanding, the whole project, which relies on cooperation between advertisers and browser makers, is very close to crashing and burning.
Firefox 21 beta also comes with a new feature to help improve startup speed. This isn't some sort of new technology or optimization; rather, if Firefox detects an unusually slow startup time, it will suggest things to make it better.
Suggestions are in the lines, disable some add-ons, change the homepage and so on, nothing particularly insightful, but still useful.
Mozilla is working on a new, more active way of tracking browser data. The feature is dubbed Firefox Health Report and is designed to log technical usage data and data about the environment, to help with troubleshooting, optimization and so on.
Most other browsers already have a similar feature, but Mozilla has always been very careful when it comes to privacy issues. While Firefox won't track any user-specific data, users can still disable the feature and delete any of the stored data at any time.
Finally, the new tab page has gotten some improvements, it's now possible to restore thumbnails for pages you've removed previously.