Mozilla Firefox 4 review

Headline features include webGL support and better JavaScript performance

The Mozilla Firefox 4 web browser was released yesterday, joining recent releases from rivals Google with Chrome 10 and Microsoft with Internet Explorer 9.

The headline features in Firefox 4 are WebGL graphics support, graphics hardware acceleration, better JavaScript performance, improved security and an all-round increase in usability, albeit with minor niggles.

Browser market share statistics
Firefox 4 is an important release for Mozilla as it tries to stem the fall in its market share. The latest statistics show Firefox with 21.7 per cent market share in February 2011, compared with 24.2 per cent in the same period last year.

During that time, Google's Chrome browser gained 5.4 per cent (up to 10.9 per cent), while Internet Explorer's market share fell 4.8 per cent to 56.8 per cent, according to NetMarketShare.

Install
We downloaded Firefox 4 from Mozilla's website and installed on several systems, including our Labs Dell Optiplex 980 and two Core 2 Duo laptops.

Install of the 12MB executable took just a couple of minutes and does not require a system restart.

The first thing devotees of Firefox will notice if they're using Windows 7 is that the distinctive Firefox icon has disappeared, replaced with a plain orange rectangular button [see picture], although XP Professional retains the traditional Firefox icon.

Another difference is that the home, bookmarks and refresh buttons aren't in the same places they were in the last release of version 3 of Firefox, 3.6.15.

Bookmarks migrate to the extreme right of the screen with the home button just to the left of that and website tabs - which used to be under the address bar - now on top.

We think it would have been better if Firefox let users customise the location of these buttons.

The search bar is still there, as is the address bar - now termed the Awesome Bar by Mozilla. When queries are typed into this, Firefox 4 auto-completes them and includes matches from bookmarks, history and any currently open tabs.

Firefox 4 new features

WebGL support and graphics hardware acceleration
Firefox 4 is one of only two browsers with Web Graphics Library (WebGL) support; the other being Google Chrome. Microsoft has yet to outline firm plans to incorporate WebGL into IE.

WebGL is a nascent standard which is being developed by tech consortium, the Khronous Group. It is an application programming interface (API) running inside JavaScript engines allowing coders to write rich media apps which can utilise graphics hardware acceleration.

In Firefox 4, WebGL and the graphics hardware acceleration need to be enabled - as they do in Google Chrome 10. In IE9 graphics hardware acceleration is enabled by default.

Typing ‘about:config' into the address bar brings up Firefox's advanced settings.

Setting the webgl.force-enabled Boolean flag to 'True', by double-clicking on it enables WebGL and graphics hardware acceleration [see picture].

Khronous released version 1.0 of the WebGL standard earlier this month and there is a surprising amount of WebGL content on the internet already, though expect a big rise, both in WebGL content itself and applications written to code WebGL content, as the standard matures.

Firefox Sync
Another new addition is Firefox Sync, a feature that helps users to deal with Firefox installs on different devices (for example desktops, laptops and smartphones) which have different sets of bookmarks, history, preferences and users tab states.

On older versions of Firefox, Sync was provided as an add-on. With Firefox 4, it's baked in, but users have to sign up and give an email address since the settings are stored in the cloud on Mozilla's servers.

All the data to be synchronised is encrypted prior to being uploaded to Mozilla's cloud servers and this requires a sync key which Firefox generates and prompts you to backup, because "We cannot help you recover your Sync Key," says the Firefox warning message you get when you use this feature.

After confirming you're not a robot through standard anti-robot 'Captcha' verification, it is set up and should help stop those annoying times when you need to find a group of particularly obscure URLs quickly. You could search for them, but why waste time when they could be available straight away?

Tab groups

Another neat option is the ability to cluster related subjects together as a tab group, with a feature called Panorama [see picture].

Users can 'bucket' tabs into a group, name the group and Firefox will display active group tabs on its tab bar. However, you'll have to make sure Firefox restores your current session if you close it down, or the group tabs will be lost.

Performance benchmarks

JavaScript performance
There was a 31 per cent boost in JavaScript performance in Firefox 4 compared with version 3.6.15, thanks to the new JägerMonkey JavaScript engine. This result was found when using FutureMark's Peacekeeper JavaScript benchmark [see picture - higher score means better performance].

Using WebKit.orgs SunSpider JavaScript benchmark, the performance increase was more marked. Firefox 4 was almost three times faster than the previous version.

We also checked JavaScript performance on Mac OS X after installing Firefox 4 for Mac and found it to be the top performer - just [see picture - lower score means better performance].

Graphics hardware acceleration

Firefox 4's graphics hardware acceleration is less potent than either Google's Chrome 10 browser or Internet Explorer 9.

We tested the quality of the graphics acceleration using Microsoft's Fish Tank demo, a web page allowing a browser to show its graphics hardware acceleration prowess.

The main parameter in the demo is the number of fish that can be rendered at a specific number of frames per second.

Firefox 4 was well down on the frame rate at which it can display 1,000 fish - averaging between six to seven frames per second on a 1,200 x 600 resolution window.

Privacy
User concerns about websites tracking their movements is increasing and Firefox 4 offers a tracking protection feature called 'Do Not Track' to address this. Go to the advanced section of the options dialog box and in the ‘General' section, tick the, ‘Tell websites I do not want to be tracked' [see picture].

However, this feature depends on website owners respecting users' requests not to be tracked.

Operating system support
One of the biggest advantage of Firefox is its continuing support for all Windows systems - including XP Professional - most Linux distributions and Mac OS X.

Web standards support
Firefox 4 has increased web standards compliance support, which currently stands at 97 per cent - up from the 95 per cent achieved by version 3.6.15 when running the Web Standards Project Acid3 test page.

Google Chrome 10, Opera 11.01 and Safari 5.0.4 all scored 100 per cent. IE9 registered a score of 95 per cent.

Other features
Firefox 4 has also added support for Google's WebM video technology, put in multi-touch functions for better browser interaction and added a new add-on manager.

Conclusions
Once we got used to the new location of key features in the browser, we were impressed by Firefox 4.

Mozilla is back in the browser race, although it has had a prolonged gestation period, having gone through 12 beta releases before the first release candidate surfaced. Had it launched before 2011, then it would surely have garnered more plaudits.

Rival browser vendors have not been idle, either, with three of the top five browsers being renewed since December. Mozilla will have to move a lot faster updating its browser, so expect a big push to make sure version 5 ships on time.