A major feature has been silently slipped into the latest update of Firefox 10 Nightly, which has the potential to phase out one of the most popular and extremely useful Firefox add-on – Firebug. Yes, Firefox‘s native Code/Style inspector is here.

Firebug is probably the single tool web developers need the most. For some, it is the only reason to use Firefox. Of course, all other major browsers have developed their native style inspectors, Firebug is still the favorite of the masses. But soon, it may have to face a fight for existence. The code/style inspector in Firefox 10 Nightly looks a bit juvenile but it’s just the beginning. The screenshot below shows that it already has some basic options in place, like ‘Inspect’, ‘Style’ and ‘HTML’ panes and a fly-out window called ‘Style Inspector’.

As of now, you can’t fiddle with any of the HTML or CSS code. I suspect Mozilla might take a different approach to CSS debugging compared to Firebug. Like I said, this is the first glimpse of Firefox‘s native code/style inspector so all we can do is to hope that the final outcome is satisfactory. It is definitely something I’d be looking forward to. Below is the screenshot of the Mozilla Wiki page that shows the feature is currently under development and will be available in Firefox 10.

Download the latest Firefox Nightly here.

So, what do you think of Firefox’s native Code/Style Inspector? Will it be a threat to Firebug? Or not?

Opera, known for its bold and innovative steps to make browsing a better experience has rolled out exciting new features in the latest release Opera 11.50, the most prominent being live content in Speed Dials.

Essentially, the Speed Dials will now work more like widgets. Dynamic content will be fetched from websites and shown with live updates within the browsers landing page. This makes so much sense as it completely eliminates one user-action. Weather updates, stock trends, live news feeds, etc will replace the generic images in Speed Dials.

Other worth mentionable improvements in Opera 11.50 include password synchronization across Opera installations on multiple computers, integrated Read It Later support, slight changes in GUI, better web standards support, performance boosts, etc. Fan or not, you should try Opera because it just keeps getting better.

Download Opera

Yes, as per the official schedule, Firefox 5 is going to be released on June 21 but it’s ready and you can download it from the ‘warehouse’, I mean, the unofficial repository.

Just so you know, Mozilla, and almost all browser developers, have now started following the ‘release often’ policy whereby you will see newer versions of your browsers every 3 months or so. The versioning numbers will also increment at a faster rate. After Firefox 4, a new version is now due. Firefox 5 brings in lot of bug fixes and new features like Do Not Track Header. Download Firefox 5 here:

Firefox 5 for Windows

Firefox 5 for Linux

Firefox 5 for Mac OSX

Following the ‘release often’ policy, the Mozilla Firefox team successfully reached the Beta stage of the 5th iteration of the browser. According to the new 18 week ‘Rapid Release Cycle’ strategy, Firefox versions will be released on a strict schedule with lot of bug improvements and additional features.

Firefox 5 Beta arrives with 1053 bug fixes and some cool new features:

Download Firefox 5 Beta for Windows, Mac OS X, Linux and Android

The concept of speed dials in browsers, whereby you can bookmark your favorite sites in the form of thumbnail right on your browser’s start page, was first introduced in Opera 9.2 in April 2007. Soon, all major browsers got their own versions, officially and unofficially. Today, Google Chrome and Safari offer this functionality by the name ‘Top Sites’. Firefox do not have it officially but there are 3 great plugins that fills the void.

Sugestron Speed Dial

Sugestron replicates Google Chrome‘s ‘Top Sites’ feature. It automatically provides quick access to websites that you visit the most. The bookmarks keep changing based on the sites you browse.

Download Sugestron Speed Dial for Firefox

Fast Dial

Instead of automatically populating most visited sites, Fast Dial lets you set your favorites manually. You can setup your bookmarks in lovely grids of 2×2, 3×4, 5×3, whatever you please. I have used this addon in the past but due to the lack of newer updates, I switched to Speed Dial, mentioned next. However, Fast Dial is in itself a very nifty addon that consume the least resources.

Download Fast Dial for Firefox

Speed Dial

My personal favorite. Speed Dial is for advanced users wanting the most out of an addon. Speed Dial offers extensive features like Dial groups, capture delay/timeouts, export/import settings and dials, etc. It is the most feature rich speed dial addon for Firefox.

Download Speed Dial for Firefox

So, do you prefer using any of these speed dial addons? Or you’d rather keep it simple and use the bookmark toolbar instead?

We are starting a new weekly series whereby we will listdown "5 bests" from the tech world. You will find great plugins, extensions, customizations, tips, tricks, etc. in this series. For week 1, we have some great Google Chrome extensions that you’d love to try out.

1. Stay Focusd

So you’ve decided you will never visit that website (read, Facebook again! But 5 minutes later, you find yourself happily browsing it. Stay Focusd will be your nanny and help you stay focused on your work. Stay Focusd limits the amount of time you spend on time-wasting websites like Facebook, Twitter, Youtube, etc.

2. Turn off the lights

A very cool extension that darkens other elements of the page when a video is played. This gives a nice theatre feel.

3. Unfriend Finder for Facebook

A much anticipated feature but sadly Facebook doesn’t offer it natively. However, this cool extension will notify you if your friend remove you from their friendlist, block you or deactivate their profiles.

4. Panic Button

You browse your favorite sites during office hours. Yes, you do. But when your boss enters, you either close each tab one by one (quite time consuming!) or the browser itself. You are in the middle of the conversation with someone and boom! you are disconnected. Panic Button is a nifty little extension that simply hides all your tabs at once, with a single click. It hides them, not close them. You can restore them later when the coast is clear.

5. Snippy

A great productivity tool. With Snippy you can take snippets of interesting information, be it text or images and edit them, save them for future use and share them too. You can also add comments to your saved snippets.

The social-savvy browser Rockmelt is now available on the Apple App Store for iOS devices – iPhone, iPad and iPod Touch.

We reviewed Rockmelt’s desktop version back in November when it was released. It’s a god-send for those who wish to stay ahead of the lot in the social-media game. Rockmelt lets you log into an array of different social networks like Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, etc., save articles for reading later and act as an RSS reader.

The tight integration of various services with a fast and responsive browser is what makes Rockmelt apart. Plus, it also features syncing your browsing data, bookmarks, View later items, etc. with your computer. All of this is now available for your iPhone and iPad, for free. Here’s the Rockmelt for iPhone video:

Get Rockmelt for iPhone, iPad and iPod Touch

Google Chrome‘s been under hyper-experimentation lately, pushing out new innovative features every couple of days. Google has recently enabled pre-rendering of pages in Google Chrome. Another nifty little feature which may go online very soon is the redesigned New Tab.

The latest development builds (i.e Chrome 12) now has an option to enable the experimental New Tab redesign via flags. This will change the way new tabs are displayed. The previous accordion style of displaying apps, bookmarks and history will now replaced by tabs at the bottom. Apps, bookmarks and History will now be displayed one at the time and are arranged in a carousel.

To use this feature, you’ll need to enable it via about:flags and restart your browser. But like I said, it’s still in the experimental state, so you won’t be able to see it in its full glory. Hope that the feature soon gets out of beta and pave its way to stable builds.

In spite of stiff competition from other browsers Google Chrome is undoubtedly the fastest and the most responsive browser. With 11 versions in, Chrome continues to improvise. Google‘s latest experiments with Chrome involves pre-rendering of pages to reduce (atleast visibly) their load times. Pre-rendering means to load an element or a webpage in the background before its link is clicked i.e. explicitly requested by the user. Currently, this feature is in an experimental stage but you can use it nonetheless.

To pre-render a page, web-masters have to include a <link rel="prefetch" > tag to the header. For example, if you wish to pre-load page 2 while the user is on page 1, you’ll include the following line in page 1′s header:

<link rel="prefetch" type="text/html" href="page-2.html" />

The actual process is pretty simple. When Chrome identifies a link with a ‘prefetch’ tag, it renders it in an invisible tab. When the user clicks the link, the invisible tab’s content is instantaneously swapped with RenderView (i.e. a visible tab). In case the user does not, the content is removed from the invisible tab after a pre-defined time interval, which is usually less than a minute. Here’s the simple flowchart:

Pre-rendering is one small but very useful feature. For example a lot of content that needs to be loaded dynamically could be pre-fetched, which can then appear to be load instantaneously when called for. At the least, pre-rendering gives an impression of a faster website. You can read more about Chrome‘s pre-rendering here.

In the process of streamlining the developer versions and regular versions of Firefox, Mozilla has decided to bifurcate them in 4 channels and release them often in an organized pattern. These channels are: Nightly, Aurora, Beta and Release. This is the ‘rapid iteration’ process that almost all browsers have adopted recently.

Nightly (previously known as ‘Minefield‘) is the most volatile version of Firefox. It is not even a pre-release. However, it incorporates the newest innovations and gets updated on a daily basis. It is not officially recommended but if you are inclined, http://nightly.mozilla.org/.

Aurora, which is a new addition to the group, is a relatively safer version than the Nightlies but not as much as the Betas. It can be called the pre-release version of the next iteration of Firefox. Aurora channel just went online and it’s already offering Firefox 5 Alpha 2. Although Mozilla does say ‘proceed with caution’, Aurora is stable enough for the developers to work on. You can download it from here: http://www.mozilla.com/en-US/firefox/channel/

Beta is for general audiences to get the taste of what’s coming. Almost devoid of bugs, it lets users experience the new version of Firefox and provide feedback.

Final Release is the most stable release. Millions use it and so will you, if you hate mess ups of all kinds.

The channel structure for Firefox existed since a long time but it wasn’t particularly well-maintained. With Mozilla’s dedicated efforts to renovate the channels and release iterations on a timely basis, Firefox 6 and even Firefox 7 may get released by the end of this year.