Mozilla Firefox launches experimental features.
As part of Mozilla’s Test Pilot program, three new experimental features have been launched. Mozilla’s test pilot program gives users early access to some amazing features which is still in development phase and would be launched in future as part of official installers.
In the beginning of this year, Mozilla launched this program with some great features such as:
- Universal Search
- Tab Center
- No More 404s
- Activity Stream
Along with the above, another three features is introduced now:
- Page Shot
- Min Vid
- Tracking Protection
Here is a quick look at the new features. The features you can experience it after installation (installation guide at end of this article).
Table of Contents
Page Shot
Mozilla introduced on-the-fly page-shot while you are browsing the web. Just with a click of a button in a tool bar. So you don’t need to reply on the operating system’s screenshot feature. Page Shot gives you option to select an area for the shot and you can directly share the image via social networking sites. The Page Shot uses pageshot.net for storing the images.
A Quick Video of Page Shot in action
Min Vid
Min Vid features allows you to play tube videos in a smaller window on top of tabs so that you can continue watching the videos while browsing other tabs, do other work. This neat feature currently works with YouTube and Vimeo only and plans are there to extend to the popular sites.
A Quick Video of Min Vid
Tracking Protection
Currently he tracking protection is only available for Firefox private browsing mode. Now with Tracking Protection experimental feature, it is available for general browsing and for all websites. You can however, enable/disable it site-to-site basis if you want.
Other Features
Tab Center
A list of open tabs on the left side with search feature. This is very useful for wide-screen monitors. The tab window can also be made to autohide.
Activity Streams
A list of your recent history is shown in a different way with sharing feature. Instead of showing conventional history with only links, it shows some descriptions, thumbnails and a sharing option with more tools which you may want to do with the link.
How to enable all these features
Open testpilot.firefox.com/experiments/ from Firefox. Install the Test Pilot extension. Then install specific feature you want to experience.
Once installed you can find it in the toolbar. You can directly enable/disable the features from the tool bar.
The experimental features are indeed awesome. But remember they are still in development phase and you may find bugs. Performance wise, these features may slow down the overall Firefox browsing experience. But it is worth to experience. Drop a comment which is your favourite feature.
