Mozilla team has released the 4th beta version for Firefox 3.5 (formerly Firefox 3.1). According the Mozilla developer center, here are the list of features that are new or changed in beta4.
- Improved tools for controlling your private data, including a Private Browsing Mode.
- Better performance and stability with the new TraceMonkey JavaScript engine.
- The ability to provide Location Aware Browsing using web standards for geolocation.
- Support for native JSON, and web worker threads.
- Improvements to the Gecko layout engine, including speculative parsing for faster content rendering.
- Support for new web technologies such as: HTML5 <video> and <audio> elements, downloadable fonts and other new CSS properties, JavaScript query selectors, HTML5 offline data storage for applications, and SVG transforms.
Here is a note about Firefox’s Geolocation feature. According to Mozilla, Geolocation lets websites know where you are in order to bring you more relevant information, or to save you time while searching. For example, if you’re looking for pizza restaurants in your area, a simple search for “pizza” will bring you the answers you need…no further information or extra typing required.
Some modern websites offer services that are richer and easier to use if they know your location (such as online mapping, or searching for specific things in your area). When you visit one of these sites, Firefox will ask you if you want it to provide the site with your current location.
If you choose to allow Geolocation, Firefox first looks for relevant location markers such as location data provided by a GPS device built into or attached to your computer or browsing device, the signal strength of nearby wireless hot spots and/or cell phone towers, and/or your computer or device’s IP address.
So what about Privacy? Here is what Mozilla says: Firefox never shares your location without your direct permission. When you visit a page that requests your information, you’ll get a notification that you can accept or deny before any information is shared.
If you do authorize Geolocation, the following information is sent from Firefox to Google to retrieve your location based on WiFi and/or IP:
- your IP address
- information about nearby wireless access points
- a temporary cookie-like identifier
This information is sent via an encrypted SSL connection to further protect your privacy. Google Location Services sends back to Firefox an estimate of your location which Firefox provides to the requesting web page. Google does not know the URL or domain of the requesting page.
It’s your choice to expose yourself or not.
Technorati Tags: Mozilla, Firefox 3.5, Firefox 3.1, Geolocation, Google, TraceMonkey, JSON
