Firefox 13.0 Beta 4

Firefox Beta is the build for those who like a little bit of jeopardy, but who don’t want to risk everything by trying out Firefox Aurora, the early alpha build of Firefox. Firefox Beta gives you a sneak peek at the next version of Firefox six weeks ahead of its final release, offering a relatively stable build that’s not quite ready for primetime, but still pretty solid.

Whereas Firefox Aurora installs as a completely separate application alongside your existing Firefox installation, Firebox Beta will replace the stable build. Should you subsequently wish to go back to the safer version, you’ll need to manually download the stable version and install it over the top of the beta build.

Confirm which build you have by selecting About Firefox from the Firefox menu or button (it’s inside the Help menu if using the Firefox button).

Version 13 introduces three notable new changes: smooth scrolling is now enabled by default, while there are redesigned Home and New Tab pages.

Firefox’s new Home page (type about:home into the Address bar) provides users with a customised page that includes shortcuts to bookmarks, downloads, add-ons, history, sync, settings and an option for restoring the previous session. This latter feature is another new addition to Firefox’s feature set, and restores all open tabs from a previous browsing session.

The home page, which can be pinned permanently as an app tab for easy access, is fully functional already, but will evolve further in time – Mozilla plans to use it as a portal to the upcoming Apps Market, for example.

Firefox 13 also introduces a redesigned New Tab page that will be familiar to Chrome and Opera users: thumbnail previews of frequently visited sites. On first visit these will appear blank, but as time goes on and you visit said sites, they should start to populate themselves with thumbnail images of the site itself.

Sites can be permanently removed (click X) or pinned to the list, and those who hate the new feature will find a small button in the top right-hand corner that toggles between this new view and the traditional blank tab page.

Firefox 13 looks set to be a landmark release, with some genuinely useful and exciting new features to get excited about.