Take advantage of it can not just Windows users, since the browser can be installed on Mac OS X and Linux. The most important innovations was done on the Mozilla Update Manager. It downloads, instals and manages updates silently without user consent. Of course, this convenience function can be deselected during installation or later. Minor problems are likely to occur when using Mac OS X 10.7 Lion. Here, unfortunately, still lacks the support for full screen view of several websites. But with tools like SIMBL or Maximizer plugin, this problem can be fixed quickly.

More important than additional functions for the end user, however, is the pace of the new open source browser. Even the earlier versions were known for speed and Firefox 12 confirms this. It starts much faster and also several benchmark results suggest that a worthwhile update to the latest Firefox may well. Also mentioned form Mozilla, they have reduced resource consumption. The free browser can already be downloaded and used, there are further improvements in occupational safety and speed expected to be submitted probably in the second half of this year. Roughly speaking, the "new" Firefox browser is on the best way to get back to the status as the undisputed number 1 in the browser segment, because in recent years, the Google Chrome browser got even more popular.

Impressive, of course, is the new Page Inspector 3D, which can be started over the menu item "Web Developer -> Inspect". Then you have to click the button "3D (M)", which is located in the lower right corner, then you get into the 3D mode. There you can rotate the website, zoom with the mouse wheel and inspect the items displayed.

Apart from this important change, there were other adjustments. In future the forward button will not appear until the back button has been pressed. Also on the technical site, a lot has changed. Thus, for WebGL finally implemented the anti-aliasing, which should give browser-based applications an even higher graphic experience. Also the CSS3 property "3D Transforms" is now supported. With the "Full Screen API" developers can now build web applications that can be displayed in full screen mode.

However, there are still some unsolved problems. Thus, the new two-digit version number cause problems on a small number of websites. Likewise, Firefox will crash when you try to run the browser with a locked profile. However, the problems for most users are negligibly small. To enjoy the new Firefox 10, here is the download to start.

Even in the test of Computerbild, the new release of Firefox has done much better than its predecessor. In Kraken Firefox 9 was 26% faster than Firefox 8 and the V8 test had a whopping increase of 34%. This improvement is mainly relevant for web pages that have a high proportion of JavaScript code. On a purely static websites without JavaScript Type Inference, however, has no effect.

But what is Type Inference? Well, JavaScript is actually a typeless language. Unlike Java, where each variable has a specific class type. In order that a JIT compiler like JaegerMonkey can work effectively, the type of a variable must be known. Type Inference analyzes the use of each variable and calculates the data type of a variable. Thus, the execution can then accelerate significantly.

As announced in a blog post, if there are installed third-party Add-ons, they are only working in the future, when a user release them by hand. Therefore, care should be taken during an upgrade, that all checkboxes are checked for the add-ons that you want to continue using.

In addition to this change, there are still a couple of mini-updates regarding the search. So shall the Twitter search integration be included. So you can then search through the Firefox search box for hashtags and Twitter users. This function is certainly not groundbreaking, and the most trivial tweets on Twitter are not particularly exciting.

As a further improvement, the tabs are now displayed animated when they move or moves to a new window. Whether such a feature is really needed, is also an open question. The only real improvement in Firefox 8 is the acceleration of loading old tabs. If you close the browser and Firefox will be restarted again, then Firefox will only load the active tab completely. The other tabs are loaded only when needed.

To achieve this improvement, Mozilla has revised the garbage collector of Firefox. The internal process was changed here, i.e. expect more memory is released and not only when a memory limit was reached. Although such a needed garbage collection runs a certain time, however, should reduce this, because now more frequently but less must be cleaned up. Long runs, which had blocked a system in former times, thus a thing of the past.

In addition to improved memory management Firefox 7 will also start and load some web pages faster. This is especially possible because of the integration of the new graphics engine Azure, which will replace the old Cairo engine for 2D canvas elements. Azure works in contrast to Cairo and is similar to the stateless Direct2D technology from Microsoft.

The comparison of Bas Schouten, who has tested both engines, shows that Azure is significantly more powerful than Cairo. Even if the engine is currently used for 2D canvas elements only, one can thus expect a significant performance improvement.

Images: Nicholas Nethercote, Bas Schouten

According to the release notes of Firefox 6, there are following changes:

• The domain name in the address bar is highlighted, the remaining part of the URL is displayed in a darker blue.
• The identity block is represented visually more beautiful. Also the boxes on SSL certificates and passwords.
• Permission management via "about:permissions".
• Integration of a prefixed API for WebSockets.
• Integration of EventSource for server-side events on persistent connections.
• A scratchpad to run and test the JavaScript code at runtime.
• Summary of tools in a web developer menu item.
• Reduced startup time when using the panorama function.

Most changes are primarily related to Web developers which are not important for regular Internet users. The only directly visible changes are related to the address line and the identity block.

Another change, the average user is concerned with, is the new tab "about: permissions". There you can control the permissions of individual pages. You can specify whether a site can access your local position, you may choose whether cookies should be set and whether pop-ups are allowed.

The new tab is however not involved in the menu of the current beta. This function could be accessed via the address bar of the browser. In the final version, this should be integrated into the main menu. Until then, however, you can safely surf with the stable version of Firefox 5. The automatic update function will install Firefox 6 if its available as final version.

Previously, there were security updates that were automatically recorded by Mozilla and this were usually incremental, they were not particularly large, quickly installed and the browser has worked as well as before. A major release is a complete upgrade to a new major browser version with new functionality. Moreover, many add-ons doesn't work in new major versions, because the developers did not adjust these as fast as Mozilla screwed up the version numbers. Especially in the online banking sector, some add-ons and plugins has an extensive test run when the base of the browser changes.

The freaks say, it does not change so much in Firefox 5 and you have to adapt to the add-ons, but only the version number. But the end users does not care, because a bank won't release a new plugin without a large test run. The bottom line is that users are frustrated because new major releases are shipped as an automatic security update and after the update things are not working anymore. The result is then a drift to a competitor.

For companies, it looks even worse. Large corporations have to handle 500.000 installations and more. A change is not done from today to tomorrow. There are even companies that have invested much time and money to switch to the new/old Firefox 4. After 6 weeks Mozilla was presenting Firefox 5 and announced to discontinue support for Firefox 4. This is a hit in the face, because according to Asa Dotzler (Mozilla), companies have never been the target group.

Now you would think that Asa Dotzler will at least make the home user happy. But as it seems, they are also very acidic. If we are looking at a couple of comments, it's clear that Mozilla somehow digging itself a grave:

I've had with the 4.0 version already massive loss of speed, but the 5.0 version is worse, since IE is built on 10 times faster.

With the new Firefox 5.0 online banking is no longer possible. The website bw-Bank.de only works with 4.0.

Mozilla finally earns its money for the development from Google and Yahoo. The Google Toolbar for Firefox 5 has the same problems, such as Yahoo with the completion of its own Edition for the Firefox 5 release. The Firefox browser has been one of the best browser. We can only hope that Mozilla comes to its senses and responds to the needs of the users. If no more users are there, there is no need for new major releases, which must be published every 6 weeks.

But we should not expect too large jumps. To the end of June there are only 2 months left and in the current Aurora trial, only a few changes are mentioned. Optically there has almost nothing changed. There have been some performance improvements. In the internet were already some mock-ups to the fitted surface of Firefox 5, but it is still not implemented.

The browser should be more "social", i.e. integration of Facebook and Twitter should take place centrally in the browser. The users should be able to "share" sites more easily. Similarly, relevant websites are given their own menu. So you could get a faster access to functions of frequently visited sites. Whether these changes are already implemented in Firefox 5 remains to be open.

Other changes will arise with the home button. This should be omitted entirely and replaced by a home app-tab. In this tab, the most important information is summarized in a page. In addition to these optical adjustments there also should be new functionally like an internal preview for PDF documents. Until the final version of Firefox 5 is released users should continue surfig with Firefox 4. The current Firefox Download is available here.

The tabs are moved up and are now fitted over the address bar. This will have the advantage that the mouse movements to be shorter. Also, the App tab has been migrated from an add-on to default browser functionality. Using the context menu of a tab, there is a "Pin as App-Tab" function.

Then, the width of the tab is reduced and bears the icon of the website. This makes sense for web applications like Gmail. This saves space and creates more visibility. Also for reasons of space, the menu bar has disappeared. This is now behind the distinctive, orange drop-down button in the upper left.

With this bar you can access the settings for add-on manager and for the bookmarks. Other buttons, such as for example the home button, are moved to the right and are not at the usual place. But you can customize these buttons easily and move it or add new buttons.

The look of the add-on manager has changed in Firefox 4. The manager has its own tab and display the installed add-ons clearly. A disadvantage is that some add-ons in Firefox 4 run any more, because they are no longer compatible. Cause here is the restriction that add-ons need to specify a minimum and maximum version of Firefox, for which they are intended. In theory, many of the seemingly incompatible add-ons do probably run in Firefox 4, but the browser is quite strict. Mozilla should build here additional options for backward compatibility. If an add-on developer does not provide a new add-on version, you can not use it so easy, even if it may run in Firefox 4.

Technically Firefox 4 has a lot to offer. The new HTML5 standard is implemented and the JavaScript engine has been improved. With Web O' Wonder you can get an idea of ​​the innovations. There is for example the game "Runfield", in which a fox can jump on a dirt road. The game works without any plug-ins and add-ons. Also new in HTML5 is the integrated video function, which makes flash almost superfluous. In addition, with WebGL, a hardware-accelerated 3D graphics is available without having to rely on external plugins. For manufacturers and users of browser games, this is a very important innovation. Here you can get the new Firefox 4, with its improvements.