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First Look: Mozilla Firefox 4 web browser

Mozilla Firefox 4 is now available as a free download. As these First Look screenshots show, Firefox 4 has taken some cues from Chrome and Internet Explorer 9 to make a cleaner and more nimble web browsing experience.
By Mark Kaelin, Contributor
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Mozilla Firefox 4 is now available as a free download. As these First Look screenshots show, Firefox 4 has taken some cues from Chrome and Internet Explorer 9 to make a cleaner and more nimble web browsing experience.

Images created by Mark Kaelin for TechRepublic. All rights reserved.

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The TechRepublic front door.

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Similar to Internet Explorer 9, you can pin websites for easy access. Only in IE9 the pinned icons are on the Taskbar, while in Firefox 4 they are located on the tab bar.

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Bookmark favorites and access browser history with convenient icons.

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File menu.

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Edit menu.

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View menu.

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History menu.

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Bookmarks.

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Tools menu.

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Help menu.

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General options screen.

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Tabs option screen.

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Content options screen.

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Applications option screen.

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Privacy options screen.

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Security options screen.

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Sync options screen - we'll revisit this one.

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Advanced options screen - General tab.

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Advanced options screen - Network tab.

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Advanced options screen - Update tab.

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Advanced options screen - Encryption tab.

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You'll have to setup Firefox Sync first before you can use the service.

I am curious - do you use the Firefox Sync service? Is it effective? Do you recommend it?

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Of course, add-ons are availabe for Firefox 4, but beware, many of the add-ons that worked with Firefox 3.6 are not compatible with 4. You'll have to download updated versions, if they are available.

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Similar to add-ons, extensions for Firefox 4 are available, but many of the older 3.6 extenstions will not work with 4.

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The default Firefox 4 theme is okay with me, but you may crave something more.

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Firefox plugins are also available, but they may need to be updated to work with version 4.

Images created by Mark Kaelin for TechRepublic. All rights reserved.

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