1. Tip: Customize Your Interface

If you’re coming from an earlier version of Firefox (or even IE or Chrome), you’ll probably notice that your icons in your toolbar aren’t in the same places you’re used to. Not to worry, simply right click on an empty in the toolbar and select “Customize…” Now you can move your icons around wherever you want them.

2. Feature: Panorama Tabs

Instead of opening a new browser window to separate unrelated tabs, you can use the new Panorama Tabs feature (Ctrl+Shift+E). This lets you visually group tabs together, keeping your taskbar free of multiple browser instances. There’s even a search feature to help you sort through your groups and tabs, not matter how many you have open.

3. Feature: The Awesome Bar

In Firefox 4, the address bar isn’t just an address bar; it’s the Awesome Bar. As you type, it automatically suggests possible matches from your bookmarks, history, and open tabs. Plus, the more you use it, the better it gets at figuring you what you’re looking for.

4. Tip: Website Tagging

While bookmarking pages, you’re also given the option to add tags. These can be anything from single words to phrases, and you can add as many as you like. Then in the Awesome Bar, simply typing in any tag will return a list of matching bookmarks.

5. Feature: Smart Keywords

With Smart Keywords, you can easily switch between search engines just by beginning your query with the keyword you assign. For example, you can pair the Wikipedia search engine with the keyword, “wiki.” Then typing “wiki Bob Dylan” into the Awesome Bar, you’ll be taken directly to the Bob Dylan Wikipedia page. Keywords can be created within the Manage Search Engines window.

6. Tip: Trackless Browsing

Some websites today track your browsing habits and then sell this information to other parties. A bit scary huh? Well Firefox 4 can combat this. In the Advanced Options, under the General tab, there is a checkbox you can enable to tell web sites you do not want to be tracked.

7. Feature: Location Aware Browsing

Somewhat the opposite of trackless browsing, Firefox 4 also has the capability of telling websites where you’re located. This setting is enabled by default, but it does warn you before sharing your location. If you’d like to turn it off completely, type “about:config” into the awesome bar, promise to be careful, and toggle the “geo.enabled” value to false. You’ll have to restart the browser for the changes to take place.

8. Tip: Faster Page Searches

Rather than hitting Ctrl+F every time you want to search within a page, you can go into the Advanced Options menu and mark the “Search for text when I start typing” checkbox. This will pull up the Quick Find function any time you start typing; although, if you’re like me and bump keys accidentally all the time, you can easily bring up the Quick Find box with the /-key, even with the setting disabled.

9. Feature: Hardware Acceleration

Just like the latest version of Internet Explorer, Firefox 4 features hardware acceleration, making use of your system’s graphics hardware to take advantage of Direct2D, Direct3D, and OpenGL. This means videos, games, and other web content will be smoother than ever, and it shows.

10. Feature: Extreme Speed Improvements

Thanks to a brand new JavaScript Engine (amongst other things), Firefox 4 is, on average, 4 times faster than its version 3.6 predecessor. It’s essentially on par with IE9 and the latest version of Chrome, winning in some tests, losing in others. All in all, it’s a very swift experience.

11. Feature: Firefox Sync

By creating a free Firefox Sync account, you can seamlessly integrate your entire browsing experience across any Firefox 4 browser you encounter, allowing you to bring your history, bookmarks, and passwords with you, no matter where you go. This works between desktop and mobile Firefox browsers alike.

11. Feature: Firefox Sync

By creating a free Firefox Sync account, you can seamlessly integrate your entire browsing experience across any Firefox 4 browser you encounter, allowing you to bring your history, bookmarks, and passwords with you, no matter where you go. This works between desktop and mobile Firefox browsers alike.

12. Feature: Switch to Tab

Any time you’re opening a new tab or typing in the Awesome Bar, Firefox checks to see if the page you’re about to view is already open in your tabs. If it is, you’ll be greeted with a small “Switch to Tab” icon, which will bring you to that tab, rather than opening a duplicate.

13. Feature: App Tabs

Right clicking on a tab gives you the option to pin it as an App Tab. When pinned, it becomes an icon anchored to the top corner of your toolbar and saves it there. This is very useful if you have several websites that you visit often but don’t want the hassle of typing in an address or fumbling through bookmarks to get there.

14. Tip: Recover Recently Closed Tabs and Windows

If you ever accidentally close a tab, don’t worry about digging through your history to find it or navigating to it again. A simple Ctrl+Shift+T will recover the last tab you closed. If you accidentally closed an entire window, Ctrl+Shift+N will resurrect it. If you closed several tabs or windows, you can recover all of them through the History Menu.

15. Tip: Using Web Site ID

Clicking on a website’s icon pulls up Firefox’s new Web Site ID. It gives you basic information about the website and the personal data, if any, you’re sharing with it. This is especially useful for confirming sites are who they claim to be, such as for online banking and shopping. It also lets you know whether or not your personal data is encrypted for safety.