Early Mockups Emerge for Firefox’s Upcoming New Tab Page

Google’s New Tab Page, which got a revamp last month has a new competitor. Oh and it’s not Speed Dial 2 which we talked about earlier, it’s the upcoming New Tab Page for Firefox. For Firefox 11, Mozilla is planning to replace the time-honored blank page with a spiffy new New Tab page. Here are some early mockups of how the page might look when it’s done.

Overall, the page looks quite similar to the old New Tab page in Chrome. However, in terms of functionality, Firefox has gone a few steps ahead of the Google-made browser. The UI will include a grid of thumbnails called “cells” which will show the most frequently visited sites by the user. The page will house nine such cells with each cell showing a thumbnail and the title of the page.

Once you hover over a thumbnail or cell, you’ll get two options: Either pin the website to the cell or to remove it from the page. If you choose to remove the site, the cell will be replaced by the next frequently visited site. Pinning the site to the cell will make the cell act as a persistent speed dial, a feature I wish Chrome had.

From the top right corner of the page you can choose to hide the page completely. Once you do so, you’ll be back with the traditional blank page. The close button will then be replaced by a grid icon, which when clicked, will reveal the New Tab page again.

Rearranging cells will be somewhat similar to what we have on Chrome. Users will just have to drag and drop a cell into another one so that it takes over the latter’s position.

Whenever you click the X button on a cell, that cell will fade to white and a new reload icon will appear at the top right corner of the window. Clicking the reload button will undo any changes you’ve made to the new tab page; for example, all pinned and rearranged cells will be replaced by your most frequently visited sites. Note that the reload button only appears when you close a particular cell; simply pinning the tab won’t make the reload button to appear.

Overall, the mockups look amazing and quite different. Rather that just copying Chrome, Safari and Opera, Mozilla has tried to innovate a concept that already exists on many popular browsers. However, excited foxes must note that these are just early mockups and the final page might end up looking something completely different. Nevertheless, kudos to Mozilla for coming up with something that will definitely make many Chromies jealous.

When can I try it out?
If all goes well, Firefox testers and hackers might be able to their hands on this feature when Firefox 11′s first alpha version comes out on December 20 th.

What do you think?
So, what do you think of Firefox’s New Tab page? Is it better than what we have on Chrome? Is it the magic feature that’ll make Chromies switch back to Firefox? Do let us know what you think in the comments section below.

Image Credits: nitot