Video without plug-ins

The big feature in Firefox 3.5 is deep support for CSS media tags, HTML5 and native support for embedded Ogg Theora/Vorbis files. This means that you can watch video or stream audio without a plug-in shaking up your browser's stability. There's not a lot of it out there now, but expect that to change in the next year.

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Tab ripping and returning

Many of the changes in Firefox 3.5 are under the hood or laying groundwork for the future. One new feature that's got some visual pop is the ability to rip tabs off into new windows or merge multiple windows into the tab bar. Unlike Google Chrome, these tabs are not sandboxed.

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Firefox 3.5 knows where you live

Firefox 3.5 might not know where you live precisely, but using Google's geo-locating tech, it can come a lot closer than you think. If it freaks you out to know that your browser can use your IP address to figure out where you and your computer are, you can turn it off through about:config.

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Geolocation: Not all evil

Using Google's tech, the geolocation feature can help narrow down vague search queries to more specific, region-based results.

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Improving data removal

Firefox 3 offered a Clear Private Data option for wiping cookies, history, and other browsing tracks in one hit. Firefox 3.5 improves upon that in two ways.

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Data removal gets granular

Firefox 3.5 offers far more control to users for choosing which browsing tracks get kept and which get killed. In the Clear Recent History option, which replaces Clear Private Data, users can search and destroy not only by the kind of browsing track recorded, but also by the time that you visited that page, accessed that cookie, or used that form.

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Remove that one site

You can also remove a single Web site from your browsing tracks. Go to your History window, right-click on any site, and choose Forget About This Site. It won't work on sub-domains, but nevertheless it's still a powerful track-tweaking tool.

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Firefox finally gets Private Browsing

Firefox has had Private Browsing in development on and off for about four years. When Google decided to make the browsing-without-tracks a debut feature in Chrome — nevermind that Safari had already been offering it for years — Firefox decided it was time to pull the curtain, too.

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Fastest Firefox yet

Firefox 3.5 is twice as fast as last year's Firefox 3, but it's still not as fast as Google Chrome or Apple Safari when it comes to JavaScript.

(Credit: Seth Rosenblatt/CNET)