Firefox 3 has started new era of smart web browser
One of the new trends with internet browsers is to prevent the browser from storing any data about your browsing sessions. With Microsoft’s InPrivate and Google Chrome’s Incognito, Mozilla too is coming up with a privacy feature for Firefox 3. Such a feature is available in Firefox 3 as a plug in named Stealther but Mozilla is now considering integrating the privacy toggle feature within its browser.
Mozilla has been considering implementing such a feature since 2004, when Safari introduced a cache avoiding browsing session. So Mozilla is finally going to roll out this new feature very soon. But it will add new characteristics to it. Like, new passwords will not be saved, autofills for passwords will be disabled, downloads will be discarded, cookies acquired during the ongoing session will also be discarded.
Microsoft’s InPrivate feature, when activated, shows a small neon symbol which indicates that you are browsing in private mode. However, Mozilla plans on keeping the private mode private by not displaying any such signs. In addition, in the privacy mode, Mozilla plans to save the visited pages in the memory and not on the hard disk. However, this might affect memory performance.
Mozilla has been wary of Google Chrome for some time. Comparative analysis has shown that Chrome is faster than Firefox 3. However, Mozilla claims that its TraceMonkey engine, which is still under development, will boost Firefox 3.1’s performance and leave Chrome’s V8 engine behind in the browser race. Mozilla performed some speed tests on its new engine and the test results showed that TraceMonkey is 28 percent faster than Chrome’s V8 engine. Also, when it comes to memory usage, Firefox 3.1 is better than Chrome.
If you compare Chrome and Firefox 3, then Chrome ranks higher than Firefox 3. Let us take a look at the reasons behind this. Mozilla has a strong base of loyal users and is working on TraceMonkey. However, other than that, it has a lot of disadvantages. Chrome has a multiprocess environment, which does not allow one bad webpage to crash the entire browser. With Firefox 3’s tabbed browsing, the unavailability of this feature is a great disadvantage. Chrome is likely to affect Firefox’s user base more than IE’s, as per studies.
However, Google Chrome is still in beta and Firefox 3.1 is still in its early stages of development, so you never know which browser might win the race. However, IE seems to be nowhere in the horizon. Although IE 8 was released by Microsoft in August, Google’s Chrome received all the attention. IE 8 is said to be much slower than Chrome or Firefox 3. In addition, it uses a lot of memory. However, IE 8 has one good thing to look forward to. All designers and developers are going to cater to it since it is going to be a default feature on all Windows OS run PC’s.
Firefox 3 has a few new add-ons, which help the user to enable Google Chrome’s features in Firefox 3. Chromifox is a new add-on, which allows the users to dress up Firefox 3 like Google Chrome. It does not mean you are cheating or copying someone else’s ideas. It just means that your ideas and thinking are up to date with the changing times. One of them is Stealther, which was mentioned above. Another is Speed Dial, which allows direct and immediate access to your websites. You have to select the option “Set as Speed Dial”, in the bookmarks menu, and assign it to a website. Another is Prism, which allows users to run web applications offline or on your desktop. Other add-ons are LocationBar2 and Download Statusbar. Such, add-ons prove that Firefox 3 is an extensible browser, something which Chrome is yet to prove.
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