Firefox 4 Previewed

Speed, functionality, and control represent the characteristics that Mozilla most wants to define Firefox 4, the next major version of the organization's open-source browser.

In a Webcast conducted on Monday, Mozilla's director of Firefox, Mike Beltzner discussed the development roadmap for Firefox 4. He stressed that speed would be a top priority. Speed is also a priority for all the other browser vendors, particularly Google.

Beltzner conceded that Mozilla's focus on specific performance metrics like scroll speed overlooks how users actually perceive speed.

"Fast is a really interesting concept," he said. "We think of fast at Mozilla in terms of the benchmarks that we have. And it turns out that is one way to measure performance but it's not necessarily the way our users experience performance."

User perception of speed can be influenced by changing the order in which pixels are painted on a screen or the way a progress indicator is animated. In other words, speed has a lot to do with design in addition to efficient computation. Without naming Google and what it has done to make the Chrome experience feel so snappy, he all but described Google's design approach, noting that simple user interfaces seem faster.

"We actually looking at making our interface faster just by changing the way it looks," he said.

That means getting rid of disruptions like modal dialog boxes, interruptions at start-up, and updating the browser in the background. (Google has made much of the effectiveness of silent, automatic updates in Chrome.)

Asked by a member of the audience how Firefox will compete with Google Chrome and Internet Explorer 9, Beltzner confronted the elephant in the room more directly, insisting that Firefox 4 will compete very well.

"We've built the Web eco-system into the space that we wanted it to be," he said. "Think back to the way things were five or six years ago with one player, no competition, nobody pushing each other forward. And we're now in a space that's intensely competitive, and all about pushing each other forward. We watch our competitors, our competitors watch us. And we are in it to win it."

That's easier said than done, particularly now that the competition has become more stack-oriented and device-oriented that browser-oriented. Firefox has no way to compete for iPhone users because Apple's rules don't allow browsers that users can control through plug-ins.

And if Apple's locked-down, appliance-oriented mode of computing -- exemplified by the iPhone and the iPad -- continues to thrive, Firefox may struggle to keep growing as users trade power and openness for security and convenience.

Firefox is likely to face a similar challenge gaining traction on Google's forthcoming operating system, Chrome OS.

But even if its growth has been slowed by the adoption of Chrome and Safari and the emergence of mobile platforms, Firefox remains the second most popular browser in the world after Internet Explorer, boasting a global market share of almost 25%, according to NetApplications.

Looking ahead, Firefox users can expect new tools to better manage relationships with Web sites, tools designed to clarify the data stored on third-party sites and to simplify the backing up and sharing of user data.

Other forthcoming improvements should include a new interface to manage browser customization, easier add-on discovery, clarification about which add-ons can be installed without requiring a browser restart, and a better add-on development system through a project called Jetpack.

"Once you develop to Jetpack," Beltzner said, add-ons will be "always compatible with future versions of Firefox."

There will also be a lot of work to implement new HTML5 technologies and native multimedia capabilities, not to mention security.

One major feature that won't be included: a process-separation project called Electrolysis, which will separate browser UI from Web content and plug-ins.

Mozilla is hoping to deliver a Firefox 4 beta in late June, with the official release shipping sometime in October or November.