Mozilla has, a little while ago, flushed out a big update to its Android version of the most celebrated browser Firefox. It has been in the Android market for sometime now. But, with this update, that promises to not be another run-of-the-mill experience, Mozilla has put its browser ahead of its competitors in the points table.
“Downright Sexy !”, is how I can best describe my browsing experience. The plethora of feature upgrades include, Awesome Screen, Firefox Sync, Flash Video playback, Download manager, Save as PDF feature and above all the ones here, an enhanced HTML5 support.
I might say that Mozilla team or the person who names things there is obsessed with the word “Awesome”. Way back when they released the desktop version of Firefox 3.0, they had called their address bar – The Awesome Bar. “Come on, its after all an address bar! How could someone just call it an aweso… “ – Whoa. Whoa. Whoa… No ! They had a reason to justify their cause. Things were a little messy back then and that was a significant change that these guys had brought in – to bring bookmark and history search right from the Address Bar that made it truly jaw-dropping-awesomeness for the users.
This time once again, they are here to tell us that they’ve now got an Awesome screen. And, true to its name, this is a big UI update that brings in all the good features right in the start up screen – favorite/recently visited tabs, Firefox Sync all in one small interface.
Firefox Sync provides sync for preferences, passwords, addons across all of the devices you use. Add on support to this version of Firefox for Android just got so much better.
And, for all who’ve looked upon the skies in prayers for Flash, here comes the blessing. This version of Firefox supports playback of Flash videos. As a true believer in open source technologies and evangelizing them, Mozilla encourages the use of Open Video / Audio rendering technologies. But at the same time, it tries to cater to the needs of millions of users relying on Flash to access content from across a variety of sites.
A step towards user’s privacy – Mozilla has always been concerned about the privacy of its users in the web. That is exactly why they have Do Not Track Feature in Firefox. This feature lets the websites know that you do not want your information to be collected. Consider you are shopping online for a commodity. Some sites may then access your personal information as to where you are from, what your interests are and show you some suggestions and ads that it thinks is appropriate for you. Essentially, all of this is just ‘target marketing’ if you can call it that way.
Some of them were asking me, if this should affect plugins from Twitter, Google Plus or Facebook which helps sites collect user information ? No. These services are first party services given the fact that the person owns an account in one of these sites. So, these plugins like “Login with Facebook” etc shall still work. What you really need to be worried about is the third party services that anonymously collect information about you and your online activity. And that is exactly why DNT feature in this Firefox version for Android makes it great.
Another feature that everyone keeps talking about in Firefox Android update is the Canvasing performance. What is it actually ? Canvas is actually a HTML5 element or code that provides you the facility to create bitmap images by code. Images are actually individual elements. After all, an image is an image. It is limited by its levels of resolution and size. This Canvasing element can help you render 2D bitmap images that perfectly suits your usage and view.
This feature of HTML5 is what’s making Firefox the best, claims its new Eideticker benchmark. What does Eideticker essentially do ? It captures the frames of HDMI video out from the mobile device and analyzes subsequent frames on how fast the screen pixels get changed to bring the desired output. This benchmark tells us that the new Firefox for Android has performance speeds thrice that of its previous version and almost twice that of Google Chrome’s Android version.
Another place where Firefox frowns over Chrome is the memory. Google Chrome takes up a very big chunk of memory and RAM consumption as compared to all the other browsers. But, perhaps it looks like Firefox has finally found some way to make things click ! With a very less memory that assures device performance speed, this version brings break neck browsing speeds as well.
Other features of it include, the Save as PDF feature to save any page as a document, a dedicated download manager and an all new tab switching interface that feels very much like a native ICS UI.
The advent of Google Chrome had got scores of users in the internet becoming its avid lovers. But beware, I think things are about to see a sea change now,
for the beast had been reborn with its strength renewed, and the followers of the Ghost (are to get) cowered in horror.
Book of Mozilla 6:27