Author Topic: Firefox 4.0 Beta 1 (Read 20,984 times)

Curt · « **on:** July 08, 2010, 11:40 AM »

Firefox Project does not yet show a link to Firefox 4, but Major Geeks does:

Quote

Download Mozilla Firefox 4.0 Beta 1 from the Author's Site

Author: The Mozilla Organization
Date: 2010-07-07
Size: 8.96 MB
License: Freeware
Requires: Win All
Downloaded: 131992 Times

hpearce · « **Reply #1 on:** July 08, 2010, 01:34 PM »

http://www.mozilla.com/en-US/firefox/all-beta.html

Josh · « **Reply #2 on:** July 08, 2010, 02:10 PM »

I love the paradigm being employed here with the new "Tabs on top" display option.

daddydave · « **Reply #3 on:** July 08, 2010, 02:25 PM »

I installed it despite my instincts to wait for beta 2. And oh if this is the direction Firefox is going, it may finally kick me to Chrome. And oh my, it crawls, it hangs, it uses 100,000K of memory as soon as you open it (although the old one uses about 80,000K, but it was fast so I didn't care. I've got 8GB of memory, so really I don't care, just make it fast) It is slightly but perceptibly slower switching from tab to tab. When I install an add-on, it doesn't switch to the add-ons tab or prompt me to restart. All of which could be simply add-on incompatibilities, but I haven't tested yet.

The only positive sign is that the add-ons page seems to be a work in progress, that seems to be causing some problems. I can only see 5 add-ons at a time, though, maybe it's my settings.

Also as someone noted on Lifehacker, they got "tabs on top" wrong and it doesn't give as much web page real estate as Chrome gives you.

BUT.. this is a beta after all, but I remember the 3.5 betas being really good.

Tuxman · « **Reply #4 on:** July 08, 2010, 10:45 PM »

Does anyone here have a clue how to register a service in Fx4? They somehow broke API compliance, so ...

But I actually like the new Firefox. It only lacks a button to remove that ugly app button, so I had to do it manually.
("Tabs on top" was the first thing I disabled.)

4wd · « **Reply #5 on:** July 09, 2010, 04:44 AM »

Quote from: daddydave on July 08, 2010, 02:25 PM

Also as someone noted on Lifehacker, they got "tabs on top" wrong and it doesn't give as much web page real estate as Chrome gives you.

I thought I give Portable Firefox 4.0b1 a go and I really like it so far. Seems to be faster than the previous version I've used for the last 6-8 months, (3.7pre5), using 116MB with 6 tabs open, (as I also have 8GB it's not a problem AFAIAC), but the one thing I hate is this move to Tabs on Top!

Why do it? At least they kindly provided the option to move them back to their traditional place.

As for more screen real estate with Chrome, while I don't have/use Chrome I do use IronPortable, (which is the same interface AFAIK).

IronPortable on the Left, Firefox 4.0b1 on the right.

Tabs on Top:

Tabs on Bottom:

Firefox 4.0b1 wins by ~2 pixels.

From what I can see, Iron (Chrome) only gains space because it has no StatusBar at the bottom - which you can turn off in Firefox.

Conclusion: Firefox 4 has more screen real estate than Iron (Chrome) when the Tabs are where they are supposed to be - below the Address Bar

Now the only annoying thing is trying to get some must have addons to work.

EDIT: Oh yeah, the above is on Win7 - YMMV on another OS.

Deozaan · « **Reply #6 on:** July 09, 2010, 05:28 AM »

Quote from: Josh on July 08, 2010, 02:10 PM

I love the paradigm being employed here with the new "Tabs on top" display option.

Isn't that what Chrome has done since day 1?

Lashiec · « **Reply #7 on:** July 09, 2010, 03:40 PM »

No, that's Opera you're talking about (sorry, couldn't help it :D)

Josh · « **Reply #8 on:** July 09, 2010, 04:37 PM »

Does it matter who did it first? I always thought it mattered more who did it best?

daddydave · « **Reply #9 on:** July 10, 2010, 11:46 AM »

I am finding that any add-on that does anything with the search bar engines (not keywords -- although since Firefox 3.5, you can store keywords within search bar engines, an unfortunately underhyped feature) is dead in the water.

Omnibar
Drag & DropZones
Universal Search

daddydave · « **Reply #10 on:** July 10, 2010, 09:07 PM »

I'm hoping it's just me, but I don't have an exit button. And Alt-F4 is not working either, even in safe mode with all the boxes checked to disable the addons and use all the defaults. So to close Firefox 4 beta 1, I actually have to resort to choosing Exit from the menu.

EDIT: It was just me. Stinking F Lock key. And the X in the title bar (what I was calling the exit button) has mysteriously reappeared.

Lashiec · « **Reply #11 on:** July 11, 2010, 12:48 AM »

Quote from: Josh on July 09, 2010, 04:37 PM

Does it matter who did it first? I always thought it mattered more who did it best?

Yes and no to both questions. What's the most important consideration depends on what we're discussing, and the context under which the matter is being discussed.

In this case, it doesn't matter who did it first, since so far having tabs on top or under the address bar it's for all practical purposes a personal preference, as there is no actual drawback when using the browser for having the tab bar on one place or another. For the same reason, it doesn't matter who did it best, because technically there's isn't a *best* way to put tabs on top.

There are a bunch of reasons (summary) for Firefox to now have tabs on top, due to other UI changes, which makes more convenient for the browser to have tabs on top.

Besides, I was joking :)

Josh · « **Reply #12 on:** July 11, 2010, 01:21 AM »

You were joking? I refuse to believe it! Next you are going to tell me Donationcoder is adopting a chicken as a mascot!

Deozaan · « **Reply #13 on:** July 11, 2010, 09:58 AM »

Quote from: Josh on July 11, 2010, 01:21 AM

You were joking? I refuse to believe it! Next you are going to tell me Donationcoder is adopting a chicken as a mascot!

Yeah. . . about that . . .

daddydave · « **Reply #14 on:** July 13, 2010, 05:44 PM »

Greasemonkey doesn't seem to work with beta 1.
Speed Dial works, but the Tab Context menu setting is not honored.

Your mileage or kilometrage may vary.

hpearce · « **Reply #15 on:** July 14, 2010, 10:49 AM »

It becomes clear that the address bar should be below the tabs bar when your browser uses pages for more than web browsing. Opera for instance has chat pages where the address bar is not even displayed at all.

The address data is tied to the page (tab) rather than all pages.

Having the address bar below the tab is more than just a personal preference IMHO.

briandr67 · « **Reply #16 on:** July 18, 2010, 10:40 AM »

Under W7 Home Premium x64 I have no exit button if the menu bar is Hidden, I have to exit via the Firefox menu. With the menu bar hidden I have to go into add-ons via the preferences panel once again accessible via the Ff menu. Bookmarks only being able to be placed on the right is another thing that annoys the hell out of me, not to mention that it downloads everything to the temp folder even though I have specified the Downloads folder and although I have unchecked the "Show Downloads Window" checkbox it still pops up every time. I am about to uninstall it. Much prefer 3.6 at least the add-ons actually work.

4wd · « **Reply #17 on:** July 18, 2010, 12:55 PM »

Quote from: daddydave on July 13, 2010, 05:44 PM

Greasemonkey doesn't seem to work with beta 1.

Check out this GreaseMonkey modification - it works OK here, (reported that some scripts don't work though I haven't had a problem yet).

Aardvark 3.0, BugMeNot 2.2, OptimizeGoogle 0.78.1 also work after <em:maxVersion> modification.

Curt · « **Reply #18 on:** July 21, 2010, 10:31 AM »

Quote

Firefox 4 Beta 2 release is just a few days away. Something that could break a lot of your favorite extensions.

http://cybernetnews.com/firefox-4-broken-extensions/

daddydave · « **Reply #19 on:** July 21, 2010, 01:01 PM »

Thanks, 4wd and Curt!

Just want to report that Beta 1 seems to have some problem with gmail as well, it gets stuck on the preview screen and I have to click on the HTML mode link.