New Browser Features in Deer Park Alpha 1

General

"Sanitize" privacy feature

The "Sanitize" feature provides an easy way to quickly remove browsing history, cookies, cache, saved form information, and other personal data. The items to be removed can be customized, and the feature can be activated using either a keyboard shortcut or through a menu item.

Image thumbnails as tab icons

When viewing images, tab icons now display thumbnails of the displayed image.

Fast back (and forward)

This very experimental feature allows much faster session history navigation. The feature is off by default but can be enabled for testing purposes by setting the browser.sessionhistory.max_viewers preference to a nonzero number.

Anonymous FTP login failure behavior

FTP users are now prompted to input a name and password if anonymous access fails.

CSS at-rule for matching on site/document URL

The new @-moz-document rule gives users the ability to match page objects per-site, using CSS. This makes it possible to include site-specific rules in user style sheets (userContent.css). David Baron's post to www-style explains how the rule can be used.

Report a broken website wizard

Users now have a simple tool for reporting websites that aren't working in Firefox. If installed (Reporter is a custom install option for this release) the tool can be accessed from "Report Broken Website" on the Firefox Help menu.

Improved Preferences

Instant Apply behavior on Linux and Mac

Changes made in the Preferences window now apply immediately, in line with typical behavior in other Mac OS X and GNOME applications. This change conforms with the Apple and GNOME Human Interface Guidelines.

Searchable download actions manager

You are now able to search through Firefox's file associations for downloaded files by program name or their file extension.

Searchable cookie manager

Cookies can be searched by hostname/domain and cookie name, and are organized by hostname in a tree format instead of a flat list.

Deployment

Support for profile "temp" directory on local filesystem

It is now possible to store the network cache (copies of visited webpages) and the XUL fastload cache (precompiled user interface code) on a local disk, while keeping the rest of the profile data on a network drive. This will increase performance and reduce network traffic for users in a network environment.

Mac OS X Support

Accessibility

Supports "Full Keyboard Access" system setting.

Drag and drop

Users can now drag more file types to the Dock icon to open in the browser.

Menus

Menus function properly in windows without special menus and with no windows open.

Mouse Actions

Middle mouse buttons now function as expected.

Keyboard shortcuts

Cmd+Return and Cmd+Shift+Return are now supported for address completion as on other platforms.

Back, Forward, Stop and Help keyboard shortcuts are now exposed.