For most people, it doesn’t make any difference what web browser they’re using as long as it works properly. This is pretty easy to prove. Even when Internet Explorer worked at lousy speeds before the launch of version 8, and didn’t offer much security, it was still the top web browser in the world. Computers shipped running Windows, and Windows came with Internet Explorer as a default browser. Since most people couldn’t be bothered with testing out a different browser, they just stuck to what Microsoft offered them. I’ve personally used Mozilla’s Firefox ever since I first heard of it I guess. In any case, it’s been years. While I did try other browsers such as Maxton, Chrome and Safari, I always made a point of installing and using Firefox on every computer I used, including at work. This is because Firefox always proved to be the fastest most stable browser. Nowadays, I can’t say the same. My current version of Firefox seems to get updates every couple of days, crashes pretty often and appears to move slower than before. At one point it actually became annoying enough that I found myself switching to Chrome. But deep down, I’m so used to Firefox that I can’t wait for the next version of the browser, hoping that it will work properly.
Thankfully, Mozilla is already working on Firefox 4.0. Today, the fourth Beta version of Firefox 4.0 has become available. Mozilla hasn’t announced this release so far, but Softpedia discovered that Firefox 4.0 Beta 4 is already available on the company’s FTP servers. Curious in nature, I already rushed to install it and try it out. Most of the changes were present in the last beta version as well, Firefox 4 beta 3. First of all, tabs are now positioned on the top (kind of like Chrome) but you may transform them back their usual layout if you disable the 
‘tabs on top’ option. By right-clicking on a tab, you now also have the ‘Make into App Tab’ option, which I must admit, is pretty brilliant. Mozilla figured that most users hold several services open, such as e-mail, instant messaging, youtube, etc. However, holding several such applications open, the user gets little to no room for other, daily activities. App Tabs are really small, fixed tabs, which show up on the left side of the tab strap. They automatically open upon the launch of the browser, and can’t be accidentally closed. The 4th version of the beta seems to bring another new feature regarding tabs, which is called ‘Group Your Tabs’ that you can find on the right upper side of the browser. Now this took me a little time to figure out, but you can make different groups of tabs and open a single group at a time. This way, your tab strap won’t be full of 10+ tabs, but you’ll get to keep everything you need open, and simply switch between the groups when you need to access another set of open tabs. So far, this feature seems to be working rather sluggish, but I’m hoping this will get fixed with the official release of the browser.
Earlier today, a preview release of Firefox 4.0 Beta 5 also revealed a 2-tiered menu, much like the one you get by pressing the start button in Windows. The new menu comes with two columns. The first column will feature New Tab, Private Browsing, Editing Tools, Find, Save Page As or Exit, while the second offers access to Bookmarks, History, Downloads, Add-ons, Options and Help. In this current build of the Firefox beta the one-column menu is still present, so you’ll have to wait till beta 5 is out to try it out, or you may simply get the early preview release from Mozilla’s site, just to see how it looks.
Having tried out Firefox 4.0 Beta 4, I can already say that the upcoming version of the Firefox browser seems very promising indeed. Mozilla should release the new version of the browser by the end of this year. Untill then, testers will get to see Firefox 4.0 Beta 5, 6 and 7 in the future months, that is, if Mozilla doesn’t decide to extend the testing period and add more builds.
