Introduction:
This is a quick intro to Mozilla’s new Firefox 5! Firefox 5, currently still in beta version, can be downloaded here. I would recommend uninstalling your previous version (3.6 or 4 or whatever version you’re running) before installing, just to minimize any issues.
keep in Mind that this is still a Beta release, so the information in this mini-review may not be correct by the time the next Beta release or the final release are released.
Installation:
This was exactly like any other Firefox install:
It took about 10 seconds to install.
Interface:
At first I wasn’t sure whether I had accidentally re-installed Firefox 4, since it looks identical. But no, this is the new Firefox 5. The User Interface is exactly the same.
Testing:
Firefox 5 does pretty well in the HTML 5 Test, with a score 0f 249 out of 400.
Firefox 5 does an alright job in the Acid3 Test. See the screenshot for details. I’ve placed the reference image next to Firefox 5 results so you can see:
Problems:
This is a beta release, so problems were expected. But not this amount of problems. I tried to uninstall it and re-install it, (because I seriously though it was still Firefox 4). Unfortunately, the installer wasn’t working on Windows 7 64-bit, so I had to manually remove the files and then run CCleaner to get rid of the rest. After re-installing it and seeing Hardware Insights Forum member duckula‘s comment that the user interface is the same, I was finally reassured that I was indeed running Firefox 5 Beta.
Also, Firefox 5 caused the drivers for my nVidia Gefore 7900 Graphics Card to crash twice, both in the middle of browsing sessions.
Conclusion:
The Beta edition or Firefox 5 does not bring any new or interesting features to the table, and it’s riddled with problems. But it does seem to browse a little faster, so I believe that Mozilla is making Firefox 5 a cleaner, more stable, and more optimized edition of Firefox 4.
Scoring:
Since this is a beta release, I will not score Firefox 5. Go ahead and discuss this review and Firefox 5 in general in our forum.
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