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Is Firefox falling behind?

Jonathan Riggall

Jonathan Riggall

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Chrome and Opera are now the most forward-looking browsers on the market, while Internet Explorer has come a long way and caught up with the open source favorite, Firefox

For years, Firefox, Mozilla’s customizable browser, was the browser of choice for the tech savvy. Add-ons weren’t a new thing, but Firefox’s open source community really took them to new levels, meaning you could pretty much have your browser do anything you want. It looked modern, lean and quick, especially when compared to IE.

Recent updates have been less impressive, and very incremental. It may be more secure and faster every time, but I hardly notice. The design of version 3.x hasn’t changed much, leaving it looking very last decade compared to new kid Chrome and Opera’s flashy version 10.

I wasn’t sure what to expect with Firefox 4, which is promising great change, but my first impressions are not good. Instead of something new, the tabs at the top interface is reminiscent of both Opera and Chrome, and the new orange button has been taken straight from Opera 10. While syncing is promised soon, there’s nothing that really makes Firefox 4 stand out.

Apple’s Safari has the useful and attractive Top Sites and History views, which are really user friendly, while Opera has the powerful Unite, which is a fantastic content sharing tool. Chrome is a streamlined and quick browser that keeps itself out of the way so you can concentrate on the web.

Firefox 4, meanwhile, does look fresher, but it doesn’t look like the game changer it once was. Will you be checking out the new beta?

Jonathan Riggall

Jonathan Riggall

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