Its fast, very fast

Its screaming fast! Be it page-load times or Javascript (okay, not as speedy as Chrome yet). Make sure you test out websites with heavy Javascript (like Gmail, Zenbe, etc) on the browser and decide for yourself if you wanna ditch your current browser. The one small but acceptable issue is the startup time. Though much improved since older versions, it still doesn’t load up as quickly as Opera or Chrome.

New web standards

It supports all the new web standards under HTML5 and CSS3, like @font-face (which lets web developers use any font they like without having to worry about it being installed on the end-user’s machine), SVG and APNG, <video> and <audio> tags, Ogg Theora format, native JSON, DOM traversal, color profiles. While all this means little to the lay user, it makes a whole world of difference to developers, enabling them to build much richer websites. If you are interested in the nitty-gritty stuff, read all about these technologies at hacks.mozilla.org.

Customization

The ability to customize every single part of the browser was probably the single force that drove hordes of internet users to the Mozilla camp. And its great that a huge community of developers is actively involved in developing independent add-ons. The add-ons I currently use? AdBlock Plus (ad-blocker), AdBlock Plus Element Hiding Helper (use ABP to hide text ads too), Brief (a great RSS reader), DataFox (live monitoring of BSNL DataOne badwidth usage), Downloads in Tabs (open the Downloads window in a tab), FastDial (Opera’s SpeedDial for Firefox), Glasser (use Vista’s glass effect on Firefox’s toolbar), Gmail Notifier, Greasemonkey (custom scripts for websites), ImgLikeOpera (another Opera feature cloned for FF, allowing me to allow or block images on a page) and TwitterFox (in-house Twitter client).

The awesomebar is more awesome now!

The awesome bar is improved now, looking for matches from your browsing history and bookmarks. It is also adaptable, learning over time which suggestions you choose often and pushes them up the list.

Improved security & privacy

Firefox shows details about authenticated websites in the favicon area. Just clicking on it when on secure websites (like Gmail or Mozilla Add-ons) will provide information about the digital certificates of the website. This could be especially useful when shopping online or during transactions over the net. Also, there is the new pr0n mode erm, private browsing mode. Hit Ctrl+Shift+P to enter the private mode and Firefox doesn’t remember any of your online activity.

Search the smart way

The search bar throws up suggestions automatically, as you type. You can even use it as a calculator!

Become more productive with tabs

Rearranging tabs and stripping tabs out to put them in a new window of their own is here (they’re already in Chrome and Safari). Also, there’s an option to quickly reopen tabs that you might have closed accidentally (again, it was a standard feature in Opera).

Bookmarks are better too!

Bookmarking a page is done by simply clicking on the star on the right corner of the awesome bar. You can also organize your bookmarks by tagging them (which you then use later to type-and-search in your awesome bar!). You can also use ‘smart bookmarks’ that automatically sort your most used bookmarks.

Location-aware browsing

Read more about this exciting new technology on my previous article – Try out Geolocation on Firefox 3.5.

Help is not afar

Mozilla’s knowledge base is one of the best starting points for internet noobs as well as a troubleshooter for fairly advanced users. Also, the Mozilla community is an extremely active and enthusiastic geek crowd, so rest assured, you’ll always get help (if you needed any, that is!).

Mozilla Firefox 3.5
Stable Release | Direct Link | ~7.7 MB

Made the switch finally? Any great feature left out of the list? Let me know

Flick has just come up with a great new feature that uses geolocation – The Flickr Maps page lets you view images tagged in your city. Check out the page in action (Works only on Firefox 3.5+). I’ve attached two screenshots too. You can see that the result is pretty accurate!

Download Firefox 3.5 RC2 | Firefox 3.5 RC2 Portable
The portable version can be installed alongside an existing Firefox installation.

Wave can be pictured as a mashup of rich text, pictures, videos and similar varied content. Now think of putting all this in a chat room where you’ve invited all your friends or associates; all of you could share information of that sort with one another. Also, Wave adds real-time tracking, or better, ‘live’ conversations that lets others see what you are typing as you are actually typing it! Neat!

And then there’s the Google Wave API for developers which provides a framework for extending the capabilities (rather, the possibilities!) of Wave. There is no fixed roadmap for the project, though you can expect it to be out by the end of this year . You could sign up for updates on Wave here. This might just mark the demise of IMs

Check out the hour-long Wave keynote presentation at this year’s Google I/O below!