Firefox 4 is awesome.  After being a Google Chrome user for one year, I tried Firefox 4 beta 11. I am switching back to Firefox as my primary browser. As a web power user, I found Firefox 4 gives me more efficient tools to get my work done.

• It is faster, especially it launches and opens new tabs faster than Chrome
• User interface has some nice new innovations, like non-intrusive Download pop-ups and password update dialogs
• Tab groups (Panorama) allows me to create different “workspaces” for leisure time, like Facebook surfing, and work time containing tabs for corporate email and calendar
• Sync works across my different computers, though Chrome can also do this nowadays

1. Tab groups

I have been experiementing with following tab groups which mostly correspond my different “behavior modes” I have on when working on a computer

• Work tabs: email, calendar, docs
• Social tabs: Facebook, Twitter and such
• Plone, Python and other programming related: All documents and links open, for example copy-pasting them to IRC discussion to give support for someone

Note that I had to add “Tab group” button manually to toolbar, as it was not added there automatically after update. Just right click on empty space next to tabs and choose “Customize”

2. Add-ons

Some add-ons I am using and I haven’t found equally good alternatives on Google Chrome

• New Tab JumpStart – speed dial for your recently visited pages and bookmarks when opening a new tab
• FireGestures – Mouse gestures which also work on user interface and not just web pages and which do not mess with right button click
• Web Developer toolbar – test print CSS styles, clear cookies easily, somethign that Firebug doesn’t do well
• User Agent Switcher (needed for mobile site development, some instructions here)
• …. and of course Firebug!

I still wish to have add-on sync, so I wouldn’t need to install add-ons separately on each computer.

Firefox for Mobile (Fennec) does not yet provide as solid experience as its desktop counterpart. Mobile Firefox team definitely need to add some speed to its engine before I can consider it alternative for WebKit on my Android phone. But when it gets there and the sync feature is in the place, I’ll start using it instantly.

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