Firefox 3.5 New Feature List

So with the release of Firefox 3.5 today I thought I would outline some of the new features, and what they mean to me. If you would like to review all new and improved features, visit the features page.

Super Speed: Basically all this means, is that Firefox 3.5 is approximately twice as fast at loading JavaScript than Firefox 3.0 thanks to the TraceMonkey JavaScript engine. This is definitely something to be excited about, but if I wanted the best performance, I would be looking at Chrome or Safari. So I give them thumbs up for keeping up pace, and not falling asleep at the wheel like Internet Explorer.

Private Browsing: New to Firefox 3.5 is the ability to enter private browsing mode that will not save any information of your browsing session. Perfect for looking for gifts for your loved one when you share the same computer. I see where this could be useful, but for me, it is a feature that will never be used. Moving on!

Forget This Site: Very much like the last, but forgets all traces to a particular site, and not just the one history item. Again, I never worry about my history, but if I did I see how deleting all traces to a specific site would nice.

Tab Organization: This adds the ability to drag a tab out of window to make it its own window, and I would assume drag tabs between windows. This is a feature that I have used time to time in Safari, so it is cool to see it become 'standard' across the major web browsers.

Downloadable Fonts: This allows web designers to use the exact font that they want on their page. I assume this works by reading the font information from the host instead of the client. Seems like a cool feature and I am excited to see some of the cool fonts that will be used.

Location-Aware Browsing: Now websites can get your location directly though firefox if you allow. I think this is a really cool feature, and it will be exciting to see all the different things people use this for. Maybe when you log into google chat it will automatically assign your status message to where you are at, or have online games that place you in the world where you actually are. But more realistically, I am just excited when I go to google maps to find directions and not having to enter in my address. Thumbs Up!

Open Video and Audio: This feature alone is the one reason to support Firefox. They are pushing to upturn proprietary codecs like flash and silverlight with open source audio and video formats, allowing you to view videos and listen to audio on the web without having any codecs installed on your computer. Meaning you will no longer have to deal with updating your codecs every few months to the latest versions.

So I don’t know if all these features will be enough to get me to stop using Safari or Chrome, but if enough people start utilizing what Firefox will allow them to do with their webpages, I will have little option but to use Firefox as my browser. That or stay in the dark ages as the internet continues to evolve.