Chrome, I think I'm ready to see other people...

...and by people I mean browsers. Namely, Firefox 4. If you haven't already upgraded, maybe I can convince you that you should. I've always liked Firefox a lot, but when Chrome came out I definitely jumped on the bandwagon. I wasn't dying to get away from Firefox, I just wanted to see what all the fuss was about. I fell in love with the Google search address bar and the integration of my Google Reader and practically stopped using Firefox.

I had heard that FF4 was coming out and that it was going to be CSS3 and HTML5 compatible, which is cool, but I knew that Chrome and Safari would all be on that level soon so that wasn't a good enough reason for me to switch back from Chrome. But then I saw all of the new features.

For starters (and this is enough reason in my mind to make the switch), Firefox's new App Tabs are the coolest thing in the known nerd universe. Check out this screenshot and tell me it isn't sexy.



As you can see, there are four little buttons on the left of the screen. These are the App Tabs, and here's how they work. Most of us have a few sites that we keep open all day, and those sites take up space in your tabs bar. To fix this, App Tabs create little "mini-tabs" that keep your favorite sites open all the time without taking up much space. As an added bonus, when one of your sites has an update (new tweet, new email, etc.) the tab glows. My Twitter tab is doing that in the screenshot. They're also super easy to make: just right-click an open tab and select "Pin as App Tab".

There are plenty of other goodies, like Tab Groups, but I don't see myself using those too often. There are lots of other design tweaks, and when you download Firefox 4 you'll be able to view a few quick videos and demos that highlight these. Check it out, and let me know if you've noticed any other new features.