Today is a good day for browser fans who like to live on the cutting edge. Not only has Mozilla released Firefox 4 beta 3, but Google has launched the first beta of Chrome v6.
Fresh-Fox
Unfortunately for Mozilla fans, there aren't too many ground-breaking changes compared to last month's beta 2. On top of some bug-fixes, stability improvements and some tweaks to the JavaScript engine, the biggest change is the fact that this release is available in 34 languages. While the ability to receive 'touch events' from within Windows 7 has the potential to be quite interesting, the general lack of touch-screens in wider use may limit its utility for the time being. A full list of the changes over previous releases is available from the Firefox 4b3 page along with a download link.
Shiny and new
As the first beta of Chrome 6 - following several development releases - there are several interesting changes over version 5. Google are touting Autofill as the big new feature, which allows the browser to automatically fill details into web-forms, including a name, address and, if you want, credit card numbers. While this is quite a basic feature, Chrome's ability to store several different addresses is potentially very useful. Autofill data, along with extensions, can also be synced to the cloud - along with bookmarks and preferences - and accessed from wherever you're logging into the browser.
Of course, a new browser is no good if it doesn't come with a significant speed-boost. Google are promising major changes to the rendering engine that should give a 15 per cent improvement in both V8 and SunSpider benchmarks, as well as a 64 per cent increase in Dromeao DOM Core tests. All of this is capped off with a minor facelift that should make the Chrome interface a little simpler to use.
For those interested, beta releases of both browsers are available now from their respective websites. If you decide to give them a go, why not let us know what you think of the changes in the HEXUS.community.
