Mozilla may not have even finished the final version of Firefox 4, but are clearly already hard at work on Firefox 5 judging by screenshots and mockups that have recently emerged.
Firefox 5 looks like its gone beyond a mere ‘chromification’ of the interface according to ConceivablyTech with a more responsive interface, bigger and better URL bar and a new way of handling tabs. This latter change is perhaps the most interesting as it will introduce “site-specific browsing” to tabs by dedicating them to handling specific sites. Effectively, this means that tabs will become the apps that they’re browsing. ConceivablyTech explain with a mock-up shot of how they expect it to work:
For example, a visit to Twitter would automatically integrate features such as new tweet, search or direct messages within the site tab. This is the first example where we see Mozilla attempting to deal with web applications, where it actually turns websites into apps, while the web browser remains the dominant access and visualization platform.
Clearly then, it looks like Mozilla are attempting to try and keep people using their browser to access and use web apps such as Twitter rather than a third party client. This is something that Mozilla have been working on for a while via the Prism Project. It sounds like an ambitious move and one that will surely increase even further Firefox’s CPU footprint.
Meanwhile, TechnologyToolz reports that Password Sync will be more actively promoted in Firefox 5:
And a more detailed Add-On Manager helps identify more clearly where Add-Ons came from:
For more mockups and screenshots from the Mozilla team, check out here and here.
