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Firefox 4 is a massive overhaul with some big changes to how the browser works, how it looks and what it can do. A glance at the [http://www.mozilla.com/en-US/firefox/features/ new features page] might make some users feel overwhelmed, but there's loads of good stuff in there that will make your web browsing life easier.
Of course Firefox 4 is faster than previous releases (as much as 6 times as fast) and offers tons of improvements under the hood, but some of the new features aren't immediately obvious if you don't know where to look.
To make sure you don't miss out on anything, here's our guide to rocking Firefox 4.
## Out with the old
The first thing to do after you upgrade is make sure any add-ons you're using are up-to-date. Firefox will check for you, making sure that all your add-ons will work with Firefox 4. If there's something that doesn't work you can head to the new add-ons page and search for an update or suitable replacement.
Once you've got everything running the latest version it's time to check out some of the new features.
## Sync
The first thing to set up is the new integrated sync features. Syncing means you have your bookmarks, passwords, preferences, history and even open tabs on any computer running Firefox. Even if you only use one computer, syncing makes a great way to backup your Firefox data.
To get started head to Preferences and click the sync tab. Firefox will walk you through the process of setting up an account and choosing which items to sync. Firefox's new syncing tools use end-to-end encryption so you don't have to worry about prying eyes stealing your data.
## Native Video
Firefox 4 brings tons of support for the latest and greatest in HTML5, the next generation of the web's lingua franca, but perhaps the most useful is support for the HTML5 video tag. Native web video means you can watch movies in your web browser without the Flash plugin. That's especially good new for laptop users since Flash has historically put a heavy strain on your CPU and consequently your battery.
Of course not every site offers HTML5 video, but one big one does -- YouTube. To get HTML5 video from YouTube, head over to the site and [http://www.youtube.com/html5 opt in to the HTML experiment]. It won't work for every video, but YouTube is adding more HTML5 videos everyday.
## Tabs
You probably noticed some of the visual changes the minute you launched Firefox 4 -- tabs, for example, are now above the URL bar. And that's not the only thing new in tabs, Firefox 4 also features what Mozilla calls Tab Panorama. Tab Panorama lets you group and quickly switch between related clusters of open tabs. For example, you can group tabs for work and tabs for fun, and then quickly switch between groups.
To use Panorama just click the small multi-window icon on the right side of the Firefox window, which will bring up the Panorama interface.
There's also a new feature to pin frequently used sites in a smaller tab. Just right-click on a tab, choose the pin tab feature and Firefox will shrink the tab and make it persist even when you switch tab groups. Handy for apps you leave open all the time, like Gmail or Twitter.
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