Firefox 4.0 beta 7 brings faster JavaScript, WebGL, is now feature-complete

by Lee Mathews on November 11, 2010 at 06:51 AM

A new beta release of Firefox 4 has finally been made available. What was the hold-up, you ask? Well, with Firefox 4.0 beta 7 being tagged as the feature freeze, Mozilla had to make sure that everything they planned on being built-in by default was ready for prime-time testing. And since there's no shortage of new features and improvements in Firefox 4, it stands to reason that beta 7 took a little while to get here.

What's new in Firefox 4 beta 7? Taking center stage is the kicked up duo of TraceMonkey and JägerMonkey, which have combined to make JavaScript handling every bit as fast in Firefox 4 as it is in Google Chrome. Hardware acceleration has also been turned on by default, bringing faster page rendering via your GPU -- whether you're running WIndows XP, OS X, or Windows 7.

There's also better HTML5 support, WebGL for 3D awesomeness, and Firefox 4 beta 7 can now utilize OpenType fonts on Web pages. You're looking at the final version of Firefox 4, really. Since no new features will be added from this point forward, it's all about squashing bugs and preventing crashes between now and launch day.

We'll have more Firefox 4 coverage throughout the day, so stay tuned!

Download Firefox 4 beta 7

Tags: beta, browser, feature complete, FeatureComplete, ff4, ff4b7, firefox 4, Firefox4, mozilla, web