Firefox 4 Nearly Fully Baked

For Mozilla's next browser version, let's hope eight is enough. The independent software foundation has just released Beta 8 of the heavily overhauled new version of Firefox. Firefox 4 sports a trimmed-down user interface (as has been the trend started with Google Chrome and followed by Opera and IE9 beta). The browser also makes some significant internal changes, with a new add-in system, a faster JavaScript engine, and lots more HTML5 compatibility.

To all this goodness, Beta 8 adds a simplified syncing setup, support for WebGL 3D graphics, and a redesigned Add-ons manager. Firefox director Mike Beltzner announced the beta release on a Mozilla Blog post yesterday.

Firefox's syncing allows users to automatically recreate their history, bookmarks, open tab sets, and passwords on other computers and smartphones. The new process automatically generates a short key that you enter when you want to add devices to your syncing account, similar to a lot of device's Bluetooth pairing setup.

WebGL is an open 3D graphics API related to the Khronos Group's similar OpenGL. It allows developers to create rich interactive visual environments inside a browser without the need for plug-ins like Adobe Flash, using the HTML5 Canvas element. Beltzner's blog post states that the beta's WebGL implementation supports "most modern built-in graphics cards."

On the add-in front, Firefox 4 Beta 8's Add-ons manager allows extensions and other add-ons to update themselves automatically, without that bothersome dialog when you start the browser up. The new design also makes it easier to find add-ons of interest, according to Mozilla's Jennifer Boriss. "The new Add-ons manager will be easier to use, sleeker, and faster than ever before," claims Boriss in a separate blog post. Taking a page from Google Chrome's playbook, the new add-on gallery appears in a browser tab page rather than a separate dialog window.

In the JavaScript benchmark wars, this version brings Firefox closer to the competition, but in quick-and-dirty runs of the Sunspider benchmark, Internet Explorer 9 Platform Preview 7, Google Chrome 8, and Opera still beat it handily. On my 3.16GHz dual-core machine, the scores were Firefox 4b8: 254ms, IE9PP7: 203ms, Chrome 8: 216ms, and Opera 11: 229ms.

To try out the Firefox 4 beta for yourself, head to its Mozilla beta download page. You can run it alongside the stable version of Firefox, so don't worry about disturbing your current browser setup. Also look for a full review on PCMag.com of Firefox 4 after its full release early next year.