Software update: Mozilla 1.4 alpha

Mozilla has released alpha version 1.4 of the browser of the same name. The spam filter has been upgraded as well as stability and performance. In the release notes we find the following text and changelog:

This release features dynamic image and table resizing in Composer, smooth scrolling (see release notes for enabling this feature,) and improvements to spam filtering. In addition to these feature improvements, 1.4a also contains fixes for performance, stability, standards support and website compatibility.

What’s New in Mozilla 1.4a:

• Mozilla 1.4 contains about 1000 new bug fixes, including changes to improve performance, stability, web site compatability, standards support, and usability.
• Mozilla’s bookmarks have been overhauled. Bookmarks now include a root level folder, the ability to have two differently named bookmarks pointing at the same location, site icons in the Bookmark Manager and Bookmarks Sidebar, and separators now have support for labels.
• Composer now supports click and drag dynamic image and table resizing. If an image is selected or if the caret is placed inside a table, eight resizing handles appear and allow to resize the image/table with a simple click/drag/release. In the case of an image, the resizing is done real-time and a semi-opaque shadow of the image at its target size is shown during resizing. A tooltip shows in real-time the target size in pixels, and the relative change in pixels too.
• Mozilla now has smooth scrolling. It is disabled by default. To enable it, use about:config to add the boolean preference general.smoothScroll with a value of true. To disable smooth scrolling, set the value of the pref to false.
• Mail now has junk-mail context menu items, a “delete junk mail” menu item and many other usability improvements for junk-mail controls.
• Pop-up blocking has been streamlined to improve usability.
• XPInstall and theme install for Mac OS X has been restored.