Firefox 21

We're in the calm before the storm, browser-update-wise. Though this latest version of Mozilla's beloved open-source browser, Firefox 21, doesn't have a whole lot of new stuff users will see, coming down the pipe in June is a major overhaul. The same goes for another connoisseur's browser, Opera, which is scheduled to undergo a major overhaul in both its design and underlying engine. For now, though, let's take a look and what improvements Mozilla has cooked up for us in the ever-improving and still excellent Firefox 21.

Firefox 21's new capabilities are mostly concerned with the web browser's own operation, rather than adding new browsing tools as past updates have, such as the last version's new file download experience. Two new tools in particular fit this mold?a startup time improver and the Firefox Health report. You also get a new choice for Do Not Track, basically telling advertisers explicitly that you do want to be tracked. Finally among what's new are more Social API choices to join the Facebook integration. All this comes to an impressively capable application, the only popular browser that's truly open source and not associated with a large corporation.

A Firefox highlight has long been its best-of-breed extension capability among the Windows browser competitors, including Internet Explorer 10 and Opera, as well as Google Chrome. These browser customizers go further than those competitors'. Firefox's "Panorama" tab organizer, too, is unique. While you can get all this Mozilla goodness for Windows, Mac, or Linux, I evaluated the Windows version for this review. For a look at the mobile side, read our review of Firefox for Android.

Install
A simple 20MB download gets you the Firefox Windows installer. The latest Firefox is available for Mac (37MB) and Linux (21MB) as well as for Windows 8, 7, Vista, and XP?the last two of which even Internet Explorer 10 can't claim. You can import bookmarks from any other installed browsers on first run, but setup is as uncomplicated as it is for Chrome. Firefox makes it easy to choose a search provider other than Google, but surprisingly, not as easy as Chrome does. Mozilla also offers a Firefox with Bing version, which uses Microsoft's Web search built in.

If you're a Firefox user in good standing, all you have to do is restart the browser to get the new version. This replaces your old version of Firefox, which updates to Firefox 21 on restart automatically. The Firefox installation gets around Windows' User Access dialog in a more orthodox way than Google Chrome's automatic updates. Chrome installs in a non-standard, non-program folder, which some consider a potential security risk. Firefox, however, uses a "service" rather than a standard program process for the update to avoid the UAC dialog.

Interface
Firefox's interface is in line with the trend started by Chrome of "less is more"?less space taken up by the browser frame and controls and more space for Web pages. The page tabs have moved above the address bar, and as with Opera 12, there's just a single menu option in the form of the orange Firefox button at top left. You can re-enable the standard menus by hitting the Alt key.

Firefox's new-tab page has tiles for most-accessed sites on the new-tab page, and includes lots of settings on its default home page. As in most other browsers, you can customize what's on these thumbnails, and they shrink and enlarge as you resize the browser window. You can also remove sites and pin and unpin them to the new-tab page.

The new-tab page isn't quite up to the level of Safari's beautiful 3D Top Sites page or Opera's Speed Dial, which even offers live information on its pinned tiles. You can't specify which sites to include: They're chosen by frequency of your visits. Most other browsers let you re-open closed sessions?Firefox's default home page lets you do this, but I'd like to see the choice on the new-tab page, too. If you don't want the tile view, a button at top right turns it off, reverting to the plain white, blank tab page.

The Home button is to the right of the search bar, and a bookmark button appears to the right of that. That bookmark button only appears when you don't want the bookmark toolbar taking up browser window space. This gives you one-click access to frequently needed Web addresses. But I wish that, like IE's star button, the button also let you see recent page history. You can still call up the full bookmark manager, which lets you do things like import bookmarks from other browsers, search, and organize. The full History dialog ?lets you see all recent visits, but it's not as convenient as IE's star dropdown.

Firefox is one of the last remaining browsers to still use separate address and search boxes, which is good for those who like to keep those two activities separate. It also has a privacy benefit: everything you type into the address bar won't be sent to the search provider, as it is with single-box browsers. But search still works in the address bar, too, which Mozilla calls the "awesome bar." That tool, which drops down suggestions from your history and favorites whenever you start typing, was pioneered by Firefox and copied by all other browsers. Another of its tricks is that when one of its suggested sites is already open in a tab, you can click on a "Switch to tab" link, preventing you from opening more tabs unnecessarily?a useful tweak.

As part of its leading extensibility, Firefox has always been the browser most open to allowing different search providers, including specialized search like shopping, reference, or social. It was one of the first to support the OpenSearch format. The other popular browsers now do so, too, but Firefox can automatically detect search services on a page and let you add them from the search bar. And Firefox's built-in Twitter search option makes it easy to find Twitter personalities worth following as well as popular photos and videos on the social network.

Download Experience
As I mentioned at the outset, Firefox's download resembles the nifty, clear-feedback you get when downloading with Apple's Safari browser. When you click on a download button or link, you first see the standard small dialog showing the filename, its type, and source. But once you click the Save File button, an animation swoops up to the down-pointing arrow at top-right of the browser. This pulses and turns green. For larger downloads, you'll see a small progress bar, with a time indication, such as 4m, telling you how long it should take. Once downloading is complete, another box appears at the bottom right, which you can click to open the new download.

But the arrow is useful at any time after you've made downloads: Clicking it displays a list of them, from which you can run or open the containing folder for any of your downloads. It's not a huge overhaul, but this new download toolbar button is a real convenience, saving you from having to go through menus.

Viewing PDFs
Everyone still occasionally runs into sites that link to a PDF file rather than a webpage. Firefox now includes a convenience that's been in Chrome for over a year, built-in PDF viewing. These are often business documents, and the last thing you want to have to do during your busy workday is install software just so you can read a document. And there's another big benefit to having the viewer built-in: Security. PDF readers are a notorious vector for malware, so if the browser updates the reader software automatically, you're more likely to be protected.

Firefox now simply displays PDF documents in the browser window. But there's a caveat: As with most non-Adobe PDF readers, you won't get 100 percent compatibility with documents created by Adobe Acrobat. In the rare case that the built-in Firefox PDF reader doesn't display your document, you can still install a third-party plug-in like Adobe Reader, Nitro PDF Reader or Sumatra PDF. If you really want 100 percent Acrobat compatibility, stick with Adobe Reader, but the built-in viewer works in most cases.

I tested the feature with a few downloaded documents, and in fact, a doc I received from Adobe wouldn't display, but everything else did. The viewer is impressive? it's built entirely using Web-standard code. You can view thumbnails for each page on a left sidebar, print the doc, zoom in and out, and search using the standard browser on-page search (Crtl-F). The viewer will inform you if the document is displaying incorrectly, in which case you can use its download button and open in other software.

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/ziffdavis/pcmag/~3/PYgvqyddT6o/0,2817,2349494,00.asp

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