Firefox 9 Released: Adds Back & Forward Swipe Gestures for Mac OS X Lion
Firefox 9 has just been released for Mac OS X, Windows, and Linux. The latest version brings some significant boosts to javascript performance, some theme fixes, and a variety of other under-the-hood enhancements. Probably the most noticeable addition will be for OS X Lion users though, with the addition of two-fingered swipe gesture navigation.
Download Firefox 9
For those with Mac OS X Lion and a trackpad or Magic Mouse, the new two-finger gestures are:
- Swipe left to go forward a page
- Swipe right to go back a page
These are the same gestures that exist in Chrome, although Firefox is missing the hovering arrow which tells you the direction of your swipe.
The official “what’s new” release notes for Firefox 9 are:
- Added Type Inference, significantly improving JavaScript performance
- Improved theme integration for Mac OS X Lion
- Added two finger swipe navigation for Mac OS X Lion
- Added support for querying Do Not Track status via JavaScript
- Added support for CSS font-stretch
- Improved support for text-overflow
- Improved standards support for HTML5, MathML, and CSS
- Fixed several stability issues
Firefox 9 still does not include native Full Screen support for Lion, and although you can enter its own fullscreen mode with Command-Shift-F, it’s not as fluid and the arrow buttons aren’t there for those who are keystroke shy. Also missing is embedded PDF support, forcing you to download and open PDF’s with Preview. With how fast Firefox is pushing out releases, you’d think they would bring it up to par with the expectations of a Lion app already, but maybe some of these features will come in version 10. All in all these are relatively minor complaints though, and if you use Firefox as your web browser of choice, it’s very much a worthwhile update for the speed and javascript improvements alone.
[…] to download for Mac, Windows, and Linux users. The new version isn’t too different from version 9, but includes bug fixes, better extension management, an auto-hiding forward button, improvements […]
Installed it an now all my email links are opening in Firefox and it’s not set as my default browser. How do I fix it?
Congrats on breaking spaces in Mac OS X Lion on a Magic Mouse!
Well
I have Lion (with all updates)
Just downloaded the new release FF9
2 fingers swipe back and forth pages Not working
years behind from Safari. there is no pinch Zoom or two finger tap zoom.
although pinch zoom can be activated by some tweaks but not smooth. safari-5 star, Chrome-4star, Opera-3 star, firefox-2star
finally got a reason to leave Safari alone ;-)
FFF. Use Safari.
Allready working good with an Magic Mouse & FireFox 8.01 & 2 fingers for swipe, can be setup in the pref’s by choice “swipe btwn pages” with ONe or 2 fingers…
& with Magic TrackPad the same but “with 3 or 4 fingers”….
Hi Eric,
still blank.
I have to use 6.0.1
Any other ideas? I would love to upgrade.
Many thanks,
Martyn.
Hi there,
does anyone know why I can not load web pages in firefox when I use a version of firefox higher that 6.0.1??
Many thanks, Martyn.
Delete your cache and preferences and try again
Hi Eric,
still blank.
I have to use 6.0.1
Any other ideas? I would love to upgrade.
Many thanks,
Martyn.
(Again)
So if the two finger swipe gestures are new how do I already have 3 finger swipe gestures currently doing this? I don’t recall doing anything specific but I’ve been 3 finger left/right swiping to go back/forward since I got my magic trackpad in Firefox.
Beta version dude. I was wondering why it was not showing up as updates on my firefox. Please don’t confuse people!
MuTz777
It’s not a beta version when you install it, it’s 9.0