Just a year ago, the online community was prepared to try out the new and improved Firefox 4.0, however, not only the new version of browser was presented to users, but also a concrete plan for future releases.
We all know that it is not so much time has passed since the world saw the first version of Mozilla Firefox. Google Chrome’s success with its crazy development schedule has stimulated Mozilla to accelerate its own development. And now we review Firefox 19.0. Not bad, huh?
Installation
Most today's Linux distributions offer the latest version of Firefox. We have tested Firefox 19.0 on Ubuntu 12.04 LTS, a relatively new distribution.
Firefox download package with all necessary files included is available as an archive. It is a portable package, but local profile can’t be created in the same folder.
Usage
There is a problem with many versions of the same application, for example, Mozilla Firefox or Google Chrome: it is not so easy to understand what was added to the previous version. Honestly, I can’t remember exactly when a particular "feature" was "advertised" to the public or available for testing for some time.
It can be quite difficult to review such software products as Firefox, and, besides, I am sure many users are not very interested to read all details about the application, so I'll just mention pros and cons of Firefox, giving you the opportunity to come to your own decision depending on your Internet needs.
Advantages
One of the main advantages of Firefox is the ability to install various add-ons that incredibly expand the browser's capabilities. Being a big fan of Firefox, I want to note that Mozilla standard package doesn’t satisfy me. However, the number of existing add-ons is so huge that you can find almost anything and complete the existing "base".
Another great feature of Firefox 19 is the Awesome Bar. This name maybe is too bold, but there is a large amount of reasons to name this feature like this. The Awesome Bar uses your history to make searching easier and faster, displays most frequently used links at the top of the search list, so, you can type only key words without entering full web site addresses.
The third, and perhaps my most anticipated feature is Firefox Sync. This function is still not perfect but close enough. It allows you to back up your bookmarks, «cookies», history and, the most important thing, add-ons to Mozilla’s "cloud" server. Before creation and implementation of Firefox Sync there was a problem to migrate from one operating system to another in case add-ons were set. Add-ons never worked well. Now you can easily sync Firefox profile on different computers with different operating systems.
Disadvantages
The ability to set a bunch of add-ons in Firefox is not only a good feature, but also a big problem. Some of these additional functions should come with the browser by default without installing various add-ons.
Theoretically, add-ons are useful, but they may slow down web browser and entire system. Especially when you’ve got a lot of add-ons.
Another major problem is that Firefox is not lightweight application, and it uses a lot of system resources. One improvement in Firefox 4.0 I noticed was reducing the "appetite" for resource consumption. Although the developers try their best, the problem is still not completely solved.
Conclusion
Some users criticize Mozilla for releasing a whole bunch of versions, and I have friends who still use Firefox 3.5. I think that it is quite reasonable to speed up development process of the browser: users regularly get new features and understand that the product they use is constantly being improved.
I hated Firefox before version 3.5 because of problems with memory and a large number of add-ons that should have been set for correct work of web browser.
Now I cannot imagine working without this browser, though Firefox has a fair number of competitors.
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