Firefox 4 beta 7 is really different

I just updated to the seventh beta of the upcoming Mozilla Firefox 4. It threw me off my feet. Mozilla talks about all the performance improvements on its official blog. They do sound like all companies do when releasing their latest updates (the speedier performance, accelerated graphics...), but for the first time, they are very much true about this update. And that's know joke.

Here's my take:

Credit: Mozilla

Performance:

You are greeted with the 'fasten your seatbelts' notice for a reason. Firefox 4 is almost complete, and this beta is a near-complete version of this browser. What I noticed is that this browser is really noticeably fast. Pages actually load up faster than before and graphics lag no more for me. The scrolling is smooth. I had choppy scrolling because of my low-end graphics card. Now it's all fixed.

From Mozilla:

This release boosts performance in some important ways: it adds the JägerMonkey just-in-time (JIT) JavaScript compiler; adds more support for hardware-accelerated graphics, as well as hardware acceleration for Windows XP and Mac OS X; and enables 3D capabilities, without the need for plug-ins, with WebGL.

Really, this browser is really fast (I keep on repeating). It's Chrome-fast. I really feel I have got a better Internet connection.

Appearance:

Quite surprisingly, Firefox 4 beta 7 has a revamped look. It has a different feel altogether. I wasn't expecting this. And this was what threw me off my feet.

Link preview has changed.

The interface now looks sleeker and smoother. It has glowing, fading animations all over. Moreover, the color of all the toolbars has changed. From the bland whitish, it has become a slight tint of blue. It looks freshly painted. 

Unlike the standard in all browsers, links and bookmarks moused over appear in the Location Bar, as seen in the photo there. That too, fades in and out, making it beautiful, and even forcing you to go over links again and again, one after the other.

The beautiful new green rings

Another great thing is that this new version has replaced the ugly page loading 'progress circles' on tabs with elegant looking green rings. Well, they don't show the progress in anyway, though. But I have no complaints here. I didn't even notice that they do not show the progress. See? That wasn't even needed.

The add-ons page has changed a little. Now there are 'Remove' buttons instead of the little crosses. I like this because it used to make me think: Why can't I uninstall this extension? The crosses were not visible properly.

Panorama is one more noticeable thing. Formerly known as Tab Candy, this is one feature I have found really useful in organizing tabs. The page is now different compared to before, with a color revamp, and a new search feature, it's better than ever. When you click the search button, the screen becomes dark, and when you search for open tabs, the relevant ones light up. Also, after you close a tab group, it offers to undo it for you, which is very useful too.

Note: The Panorama keyboard shortcut has changed from Ctrl+Space to Ctrl+E.

There are many more minor changes, like the new refresh/stop button, which look like these mockups. Looks like all the browsers are slowly dirfting to the refresh buttons hidden in a longer address bar. You need to get used to it, though.

When Firefox doesn't have focus, the orange Firefox button changes to the color of the title bar, blending in. First I thought it's a bug, but then I understood that it's the way it's meant to be.

Conclusion:

Overal, I'm really happy with this new version of Firefox. I will be eagerly waiting for the final release, which is apparently coming next year. With the beta 7 already out, that could possibly change. And obviously, that will be a lot faster than this. How better can it get now?



Further reading:
Opera Mobile vs. Opera Mini, performance test
What is DNS and why is it so important?
How to set up multiple Twitter accounts with just one email

Firefox 4 beta 7 is really different

Google Instant Previews now rolling out

Google is really suddenly working hard on its search engine nowadays. Is that because Bing got so awesome suddenly, with its Wikipedia and Facebook results and stuff? Maybe. First, they released Google Instant, then they put in more stuff, recently started rolling out beta versions of Google Instant for mobile and now, Instant Previews.

<iframe title="YouTube video player" class="youtube-player" type="text/html" width="1280" height="750" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/nGaU7JKU7TU?rel=0" frameborder="0"></iframe>

On the Official Google Blog, the company writes:

"In our testing, we’ve found that people who use Instant Previews are about 5% more likely to be satisfied with the results they click. The previews provide new ways to evaluate search results, making you more likely to find what you’re looking for on the pages you visit."

If you didn't see the video above, then in a nutshell, Instant Previews gives you a snippet of the page that appears in the search results. If Instant Previews is available in your region, you will start seeing a little blue magnifying glass icon near every search result. Clicking it will display a little image snippet of the page. At times, it will even display a section of the test on the webpage that is relevant to your search.

Google says, about the usefulness of this feature:

Instant Previews can be helpful for many kinds of tasks. For example, say you looked at a page before and need to find it again—with a preview, you can tell if any of the results look familiar. Or perhaps you’re looking for an official website—look for a logo and formal style and you’ll probably be able to identify it. Or maybe you’re looking for a how-to guide—it’s easy to spot a page with clear illustrations and step-by-step instructions.

Preview of  the Official Google Blog

Oh, and if you are worrying that the image will take a long time to load, and will actually waste your time, you are wrong. Google says that the snippets will load in a tenth of a second. And when you click one image, it automatically starts loading the rest of the snippets in the results. My experience says that they are pretty close to what they say. And I have a really slow connection.

My take on this: Though I love Google Instant, and even this new feature, I don't think it could be of a lot of use. I haven't played around with it a lot, but I feel that opening up results in tabs (especially after keyboard navigation is so great) and then closing them one by one saves a lot of time, compared to looking at snippets in the search results. But I do appreciate this, though, and I accept it positively anyway.

Tip: If you are a keyboard ninja, you'll want to know this. When navigating the results using the keyboard, you can press the right arrow key to see the snippets. Then you can even use the up and down directional keys to scroll up and down the page, while looking at the same snippet. Press the left key to close the page preview and you can use the up and down keys normally again.

Update: I now feel that this feature is really useful, unlike what I've written in this review.

Google Instant Previews now rolling out

Opera Mini vs. Opera Mobile: Exclusive performance test

For those who don't have an iOS (or maybe Android) device at their disposal, Opera for mobile devices may be the best web experience for them. I'm one of them. The mobile versions of Opera are just fantastic for my Nokia phone.

But there are in fact, two distinct versions of Opera that are available for mobile devices, Opera Mini and Opera Mobile. For those who are confused between the two, here's an official comparison between the two.

With these two browsers available, I decided to put them to test and see which one is better in terms of performance. Since Opera Mobile is available only for Windows Mobile and Symbian S60, and I have a Nokia 5800 XpressMusic, I could install both on the same phone and test them under the same conditions.

All these tests, as written above were tested on the same phone, separately, and under the same conditions, over Wi-Fi. However, performance may vary from device to device, and OS to OS, and also based on your connection and the websites you are visiting.


Versions used:
I used Opera Mobile 10.1 beta and Opera Mini 5.1.22395 beta. Click the images below to see them clearly.

Performance:

I ran just the start time test and the page load tests, which are both described in detail further below. As benchmarks for mobile browsers are pretty limited (and mobile websites are too), it is not possible to test their JavaScript and CSS rendering. Probably they are not even capable of doing it.

App Start Time:

When tested individually, both browsers had a big difference in start times. This is probably because Opera Mobile is heavier and has more components to take care of (see the link to the distinction between the two above).

Averaged from three recorded start-up times,

Opera Mobile: 4.43 seconds.
Opera Mini: 2.33 seconds.

As seen above, Opera Mini has a big cut in start-up times, which can in fact compete with the Nokia browser, which has this great plus of starting up as soon as you touch it.

Opera Mobile, being so large requires a lot of data to be transferred into the phone's RAM before it starts up. So it takes almost two extra seconds to start up, compared to its little brother.

Page load times:

Both browsers were tested individually, under the same conditions to load up the mobile homepages of a bunch of popular websites. No desktop versions of websites were tested, because Opera Mini automatically redirects to the mobile version, and it is better designed to render the lightweight versions of websites. Since Opera Mobile is capable of rendering the same mobile versions of websites, it is certainly fair to test them on mobile sites.

Facebook was not used for these tests, since the news feed on the homepage keeps updating with all kinds of different media constantly, thus changing the download size of the page.

Wikipedia mobile:
Opera Mobile: 4.3 seconds
Opera Mini: 4.9 seconds

Lifehacker mobile:
Opera Mobile: 5.8 seconds
Opera Mini: 4.3 seconds

HowStuffWorks mobile:
Opera Mobile: 7.8 seconds
Opera Mini: 10.5 seconds

Twitter mobile:
Opera Mobile: 6.9 seconds
Opera Mini: 6.7 seconds

Here, though Opera Mobile was faster at rendering some sites, but in most of the cases, Opera Mini was much faster at downloading the pages. Maybe this is so because I used mobile sites, but Opera Mobile should not have had problems with them.

Other notes:

Opera Mini may be faster at loading pages and starting up, but there are still other criteria other than performance that one may want to consider when picking a mobile browser.

Overall, I see that Opera Mini looks better, with the thinner, crisper fonts and the new smooth animations that have been put into this new beta version. However, it is not that good at loading full size desktop webpages. It has been designed to be a typical mobile web browser. Comparing the rendering of mobile sites, I see that Opera Mini actually displays the sites as they are meant to be viewed. In Opera Mobile, I often have to scroll sideways to see the full width of even the mobile sites.

Opera Mobile, on the other hand has been better at viewing full, desktop sites. It doesn't perfectly work always, though as it doesn't yet have Flash support on Symbian. Testing the desktop version of Facebook on Opera Mobile didn't give me a good experience though. Opera Mobile also uses a lot of RAM to run, and when loading lots of desktop sites in tabs, it very often shuts down. But however, you will have a much better experience when using it on a newer phone, with more RAM at your disposal.

For myself, I see that Opera Mini is much better for me, as I like to browse around mobile websites when I am surfing on my phone, which even saves loads of data download when using it over your mobile network. In the page linked to above, that compares both versions, the author says that people would want to keep both browsers installed, while using Opera Mobile on Wi-Fi and Opera Mini otherwise.

What about you? Write it in the comments.

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Opera Mini vs. Opera Mobile: Exclusive performance test

The scary X-Ray of Google logo

Ever heard of the X-Ray? Of course! It's a technology that has revolutionized not only medicine, but also so much more, including archaeology. And believe it or not, it is a pretty old thing. Actually, exactly 115 years old on the day of writing this article.

Yes, it's the 115th anniversary of the X-Ray, invented by Wilhelm Röntgen in 1895, and Google is celebrating it with a Google Doodle... that shows the insides of the Google logo.

Well, apparently, they made the logo using dinosaur bones

If you look up X-Rays online, you'll see that there are many different important years in its history. So, there is no particular date we can say that 'X-Rays' were actually discovered. But initially, Röntgen discovered the new kind of radiation in 1985.


Be sure to choose one of these options to subscribe to my blog, so that you don't miss out the really great fun stuff that I keep writing about. Stay tuned!

The scary X-Ray of Google logo

Web browser poll results

This is a really old poll that is running on my blog. I am finally closing it. If anyone was following it, then here are the results:

Which web browser do you use as primary?

Out of 88 votes, 3 people (3%) voted for Internet Explorer, 46 (52%) voted for Chrome, 28 (31%) voted for Firefox, 6 (6%) voted for Opera, 4 (4%) voted for Safari and 1 (1%) voted for Other (?).

A new poll is up. Keep voting!

Web browser poll results