New Firefox 4 beta features tab manager, faster page rendering

From InfoWorld: Mozilla on Tuesday launched the fourth beta of Firefox 4, adding bookmark and password synchronization, and revamping how people wrestle tabs.

The latest build also sported the first attempt at accelerating Firefox 4's page rendering by tapping the graphics processor. The hardware acceleration, available only in Windows Vista and Windows 7, is disabled by default.

Firefox 4 Beta 4's most visible addition is "Panorama," a new name for what Mozilla had been calling "Tab Candy." Largely driven by the work of Aza Raskin, creative lead of Firefox, Panorama lets users collect tabs into sets, graphically displays those sets, and when users open a tab, shows only those tabs within the group.

Mozilla, which calls Panorama a tab manager, has argued that it's the next step in the evolution of tabs.

Firefox's rivals have nothing like Panorama. Apple, for example, introduced "Top Sites" to Safari last year, while Google's Chrome has had a similar "Most Visited" feature since it launched in 2008. But both simply graphically represent frequently visited sites using thumbnails.

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