Firefox 4.0 Beta 5 Released, Beta 6 Preview Build Available

The latest update to Firefox 4 Beta brings super fast graphics and incredible new audio capabilities to the Web. Firefox 4 Beta now leverages hardware acceleration to improve graphics performance for Windows users and allows, for the first time, visualization of audio data within the browser.

Users will also notice that the add-on manager is redesigned with a new color scheme. But, the overall functionality of add-on manager however seems to have remained the same. Still there is no option to search for and install add-ons from the add-on manager itself.

add-on manager

Hardware acceleration is enabled now by default on Windows platform. Users will find a new setting added to the browser’s option to disable hardware acceleration under Tools > Options > Advanced > Use Hardware Acceleration When Available.

hardware acceleration

Firefox 4 Beta now takes advantage of the built-in graphics hardware in Windows computers with DirectX 10 to improve graphics performance. On supported hardware, Firefox will use Direct2D by default to speed up the display of content on graphically intensive websites, giving more power to the Web.

Firefox 4 Beta introduces a new audio API to expose the raw audio data housed within the and elements in HTML5 to redefine how people experience sound on the Web. With this new API, developers can read and write raw audio data within the browser, presenting audio information in completely new ways that could allow, for example, for people to visually experience a speech or a song through Firefox.

Finally, the new single menu at the top has been revamped and now shows additional menu. When the user hovers with the mouse over an arrow at the end of a particular menu item, it expands to display the menu items. Users can return to the old menu structure, or display it temporarily by pressing the Alt key.

firefox 4 menu

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