Category: software

Little Introduction about Firefox with history

Firefox 6 got released on 16^th Aug 2011. I think it’s too early to release a newer version even when Firefox 4 and 5 are not in major use. But I feel the browser competition; especially with Google chrome’s frequent releases forced Mozilla to do so.

I am hard core user of Firefox browser and use lots of useful plug-ins for my day today activities over internet. According to W3schools around 42% internet users use Firefox and around 23% people use Internet Explorer. Another Major browser into the account is Google Chrome which is being used by almost 27% (increasing rapidly).  Browser statistics from various agents clearly depicts that Mozilla is a one sided winner in this browser’s race now.  Although Google Chrome is going to be a tough rival too! But who cares.

• When Mozilla launched Firefox v1.0 in November 2004 then there was hardly 2% of internet users were using it.
• Version 2.0 got released on October 2006. They did major enhancements and was being used by Linux users by default, apart from safari.
• It leads the browser war after releasing v3.0 in June 2008 and it was the most stable version of Firefox till now. I am still using Firefox v3.6.3 in one of my computer. It’s never gave trouble to me though.

Later they found few major security bug, crash issues and lack of look and feel layout. They did few minor fixes and released version 4.0 on March 2011. Although very few people were using it. May be they didn’t want to switch from 3 to 4 . Anyways it was big failure from Mozilla side and they launched version 5.0 just after 3 months with all updated bug fixes and it was just similar to IE9 and Google Chrome.

But Firefox v6.0 took even lesser time to come into existence. Less than 2 months…. What happened to you Mozilla? Don’t be insane. You are still user’s favorite. You don’t need to do lots of fancy experiments like IE or Chrome and you don’t have to release every new version just after few months. Stop it Now dude!. Version 6 looks cool and I wish it will be into existence for a year at least.

 I personally appreciate Mozilla’s work for bringing up totally fast, elegant, more secured browser for us. Releases will go on , whenever system ,users or situation demands any changes. On 16^th August Firefox v6.0 released and v7.0b1 has been started for newer release. It is usually with every software around the market. So welcome abode Firefox v6.0

Now chrome and IE users may switch to Firefox after using this version. There are  many features of this version which really impressed me:

• It opens faster
• Takes less space than previous Firefox, so less CPU memory consumption
• Look and feel is similar to IE + Chrome combination which makes it better than those two browsers.
• Browsing tab comes above the address bar
• Bookmarking is now more easy and customized
• Quick Find can be enabled just by clicking / then type whatever the word you are looking for. It will spot at the first word simultaneously. (Ctrl+F open Find and / open quick find mode)
• Alert message is no longer dull, it’s just equivalent to jquery alert effect. I liked it personally
• Text Area box can be resized. If you need to write longer passage just resize it using mouse over the corner of text box.
• It highlights the domain name. (again matters for  technical people. It’s not so useful for common users) So in a URL like httphttp://www.aliencoders.org/category/wordpress-category/techno-buzz/internet-related,     http://www.aliencoders.org would be emphasized.
• Simplified reload /stop button (in Firefox 3.6.3 it was before address bar.)
• Home button is introduced like Google Chrome just after the address bar.
• Auto switch tab:If you are going to open a website which is already opened, it will redirect you to existing tab. This is really cool feature to have.
• Smooth Scrolling: Earlier it was creating problem if you would open more than 10 tabs but now its new feature lets you scroll through tabs easily to see them all and access the one you want quickly.
• New option tab have been added ”stay sync”  which helps you to browse your bookmarked websites, stored password, visited websites from one system to another.
• Auto-fill Form : If you are going to write same value for any form field that you have already filled in some other form, will be suggested and will be auto filled for you
• No more Firefox crash when adobe flash, Microsoft silverlight or Apple’s quick gets crashed.
• Now you can view 3D games, videos usinf Firefox Brwoser!!! WebGL brings 3D graphics to Firefox.
• Supports more than 100 International languages.

Download links:
 windows win32 en-US

 mac en-US

Linux-i686 en-US

Linux –x86_64 en-Us

Note: The beta version of Firefox 7 i.e. v7.0b1 released on 18^th August. It  will include some major visual appearance changes. Will be fully supporting HTML tags, 3D video rendering etc….