Firefox 3.1 Beta Supports Multi-Touch Gestures
The latest Firefox beta has enabled support for multi-touch gestures on the latest Apple laptops (including the MacBook Air, and late 2008 MacBook/Macbook Pro). Multi touch gestures already provide a whole new way to use Expose on your Mac, and it seems that Firefox is likely to beat Apple to integrate the functionality into a web browser.
Shortly after Apple’s latest notebook refresh in October, an experimental build of Firefox was released that allowed Mac users to utilize the functionality of the multi-touch trackpad in the browser. As of the latest Firefox beta (v3.2), these features have been integrated into the official version.
The gestures available are:
- Swipe Left: Go back in history (hold Cmd to open it in a tab)
- Swipe Right: Go forward in history
- Swipe Up: Go to the top of the page
- Swipe Down: Go to the end of the page
- Pinch Together: Zoom out
- Pinch Apart: Zoom in
- Twist Right: Next tab
- Twist Left: Previous tab
It is expected that this new feature will be included in the next major release of Firefox, v3.1, when it becomes publicly available. Other new additions slated for the release include a private browsing mode and improved JavaScript support.
When testing this feature, Gadget Lab reported that it seemed to work with older MacBook Pro versions, not requiring the latest 2008 MacBook hardware.
This is certainly a great development from Firefox, and something I would very much like to see supported by Safari, my browser of choice. It will be interesting to see how quickly Apple moves to adopt the feature when an official release of Firefox is distributed.
Joe on December 12th, 2008 at 10:59 am
How does this beta compare to the nightly-build Mozilla browser, Minefield (which seems to recently been renamed Shiretoko)? It’s had the gestures, the private browsing, and the faster Java for a while. Would it be a good idea to switch to this beta now?
Yasser on December 12th, 2008 at 11:05 am
“When testing this feature, Gadget Lab reported that it seemed to work with older MacBook Pro versions, not requiring the latest 2008 MacBook hardware.”
Does this mean that they got it to work on 2007 and Early 2008 MacBook Pro models?
Ryan on December 12th, 2008 at 11:40 am
“Multi touch gestures already provide a whole new way to use Expose on your Mac, and it seems that Firefox is likely to beat Apple to integrate the functionality into a web browser.”
Um…it’s been in Safari since I got my new MacBook Pro…
David B on December 12th, 2008 at 11:46 am
Me and my MacBook are in the same boat as Ryan.
AppBeacon on December 12th, 2008 at 3:26 pm
I couldn’t get this to work on my older MBP either. Of course, I just have the latest Firefox/3.1b2 not the elusive 3.2 mentioned in the article.
Anyone have suggestions on why this doesn’t work? Is there actually a 3.2 beta out there?
SoulRBL on January 28th, 2009 at 11:45 am
Safari already supports multi-touch gestures like pinching to zoom in/out and three-finger swipe to move back or forward. You could always use MultiClutch to add the functionality to Firefox, as well.