In my last posting I mentioned as a footnote that I am using Firefox 8.

Since then, it has re-branded itself as Firefox 9, and this is how it announces itself to the Web, and how it will appear on server stats and the like.  On the Title-bar however, it calls itself just “Nightly”.

As I mentioned before, this incarnation of Firefox seems to be concentrating on speed. and therefore the backend, rather than any major changes to the frontend.

The increase in speed is not one that will just appear on benchmark tests, but is something that will be noticeable to anyone using the current version of Firefox.  When I say it is fast, it is fast.

If you want to see for yourself, Then pop over and download the latest for yourself.

One thing I have noticed is that they have made a very small change to the Forward and Back buttons.  Normally if there is no Forward or Back in the history, the buttons will be greyed out.  However I notice lately that instead of greying out, the buttons vanish altogether.  This wouldn’t be a problem, except that The Home, Refresh and address bar then slide over to the left.

I find this mildly irritating and distracting, and frankly I can’t see the point.  I have no problems with them wanting to increase “real estate” but this doesn’t do that.  It just creates a bit of space amongst the toolbars.

It’s not irritating enough for me to revert to the “normal” Firefox though!