Firefox Portable 21 adds an application startup time advisor and a Health Report
Not everyone gets by with the default browser on their computer, and when it comes to picking an alternative, Firefox is one of the most popular out there, having clawed back support from upstart rivals like Google Chrome and Opera in recent years by switching to a rapid release cycle, ensuring major new versions of the browser are released every six weeks.
It’s true to say that individual updates often fail to deliver anything substantial, but cumulatively they roll together to produce a web browser that is radically different to the one – version 4 – that marked the start of a new era back in 2011.
Some of the landmark new features we’ve seen include a per-site Permissions Manager, enhanced Sync options, tabs on demand, silent updates and add-on enhancements. We also saw the launch of specific development branches including UX, which has led to various interface tweaks such as redesigned home and new pages (Firefox 13), and ‘Elm’, a branch designed to provide Firefox in Modern UI form for Windows 8.
One group particularly well served by the rapid release cycle have been developers, and a plethora of tools from Javascript Scratchpad (Firefox 6) to full-blown Developer Toolbar (Firefox 16) have worked their way into successive builds as Firefox courts this important community of users.
And underpinning this all are a constantly evolving set of performance improvements, standards support (HTML5 and CSS3 are constantly being added to, for instance) and bug fixes.
What’s new in version 21? The latest version adds an application startup time advisor and preliminary support for the new Firefox Health Report, as well as various graphic improvements.
Note that this is the portable version of Firefox 21.0.
Final Verdict: Firefox Portable 21 is another minor upgrade, bringing an application startup time advisor and preliminary support for the new Firefox Health Report, as well as various graphic improvements.
Shareware
Hold your own online group chats with this powerful IRC client
Open Source
Manage, view, convert, sync and remotely access your e-books with this all-in-one management tool
Open Source
Manage, view, convert, sync and remotely access your e-books with this all-in-one management tool
Freeware
The latest stable Chrome includes a web site loading optimization and other improvements
Freeware
Get an early peek at the next stable release of Chrome without putting your system too much at risk
Freeware
Speed-optimized 64-bit version of Firefox designed for the best possible performance
Freeware
Speed-optimized version of Firefox designed for the best possible performance
Freeware
An app to help you power through your Gmail inbox with ease
Freeware
Turn your laptop into a wireless hotspot to share a web connection
Free, for personal-use only
Access and control a remote PC from any host PC or Mac