Firefox 4

[Owain Taggart]

So, it just came out, either today or yesterday depending on where you live. I have to say, I'm not terribly impressed. They've made it feel and look more like Opera, which is a good thing if you're an Opera fan, but if you like the way Firefox has been doing things in the past, it could be a bit of a disappointment. Everything seems to feel clunkier. And there's a certain lack of feedback in the interface that I feel missing. I get that same kind of feeling from Opera, and I can't quite put my finger on why. In some ways, it is snappier, and in some ways it isn't and actually feels like a step back. Some of the things like the Add-on manager for instance, which uses an entirely different interface than before are actually kind of sluggish. And the statusbar seems to have been borrowed from Opera as it behaves exactly the same way. Again, fine if you like it that way, but I see no way of changing it and it actually makes me feel a little uneasy, which is related to the lack of interface feedback. Anyone else have any other thoughts to share?

 

[John Clark]

I'm just trying it at the moment. I haven't tried Opera before, but there are some things I don't like about FF4 so far.

I prefer the old style status bar too and can't see a way to change it at the moment. It also seems to change around some of the toolbar choices I've made when I close it down and restart.

(Edit to add) -There's also something called the conduit engine toolbar. If I open a new window rather than tab, that opens itself up again.

 

[Canadave]

I may give it a shot at some point. I haven't used Firefox regularly for quite a couple years now, and it'll take a lot at this point to get me to switch from Chrome.

 

[Brent]

I have to disagree, I'm loving the new FF4, pages load quicker, the tabs load quicker, interface seems snappy to me. Overall, I like it, can still customize the look to the older FF, which is good, I don't like the new arrangement, so I just put it all back to how I like it, and its all good.

 

[Kadratis]

Although I must admit it's a little faster than the prior version, it is still is not as fast and less resource intensive than Chrome. I have to use Firefox just for one extension that isn't available on Chrome... And I also concur with it coming off with an Opera-ish vibe. Just not my cup of tea.

 

[Owain Taggart]

I'm not seeing much of a performance increase, to be honest. Maybe that will change though as I start browsing javascript heavy sites. One of the major new features is Panorama, a tab grouping feature, though nice, I doubt I'll be using it much. I've had a bit of a glitch, though nothing major, and it's that by default, the tabs are supposed to be on top, but for some reason, even when it's on, I'm not getting them on top. That may be because I'm on XP and not Vista or Windows 7.

One neat thing is actually under the hood. It's something that Chrome's been doing, and was the only one until now, and it's the ability to have 3D right from within the browser without any sort of plugin.

http://www.chromeexperiments.com/webgl

Overall, here's a good look at the features:

http://www.networkworld.com/slideshows/2011/010711-firefox.html#slide1

Edit: Err well, don't bother on the 3D. It's still way too early for it as it doesn't even work half the time on Chrome itself and doesn't detect it on Firefox even though it has it.

 

[Candlelight]

Why to developers feel the need to put the access buttons in different places? The refresh is now in the address line, the home and stop are on the right.

Remember the good old days when everything was grouped in big buttons at the top...?

The remember password drop down menu has been replaced with that silly pop up window too.

It's faster but then again with broadband I never notice the difference. Will probably role back to 3.5.

 

[BigFoot]

^ You can move the Home button to the left (next to the back/forward buttons).

 

[Candlelight]

Yeah, just had a play with customising the format. Now everything is on the left and I'm happy again.

Yours,
Old Fart.

 

[BlobVanDam]

Opera is the best browser, so I don't see any problem here.

 

[Ar-Pharazon]

I tried the beta of FF4 a few weeks ago. Felt slower than the current 3.6.whatever.

I might give it another shot after the add-ons catch up.

 

[Owain Taggart]

Opera is the best browser, so I don't see any problem here.

Again, fine if you like it, but some of us rather like how Firefox has been doing things. This version of Firefox doesn't quite feel like Firefox, but rather a mix of Opera and Chrome.


Oh yeah, I know what you mean about that button, Candlelight. For some reason, even though I tell it to remember, it will still popup next time it sees the same password. I also find it to be bad design to only have one button with no visible way to say no other than to just close it.

This is the same kind of mentality used by those who write malware, often with a popup where simply closing it will infect someone.

 

[SG-17]

I love how it loads smoother and faster now, but I hated the interface. So I had to get an add-on that would allow me to have two New-Tab buttons (one in the Navigation Bar and one in the Tab Bar), an add-on for the classic status bar, and an add-on to keep the Reload and Cancel buttons separate.

 

[Count Zero]

I've been using it ever since the first beta version came out. I really like it, especially that the page window is now a bit bigger. It also loads faster.

 

[Starbreaker]

I used to be a huge fan of Firefox, but switched to Chrome last year. It's faster and it doesn't bug me to update add-ons every time I open it.

 

[bigdaddy]

I downloaded 4 and here are my thoughts...

It is the biggest piece of shit I have ever used and makes Explorer (Which I have to use now) look great. It has only loaded up once on my computer, my computer is old, but there is not reason for it. They seemed to have stolen Chrome's look and just make it run horribly, I have no issues at all with Chrome.

I'm unistalling it and reinstalling 3, because Chrom (last I knew) doesn't work with Netflix.

 

[TheGodBen]

For me, the text was blurry and I had to turn off hardware acceleration to stop my eyes from watering when trying to read text. It's annoying that I have to turn off a major feature just to use it without discomfort, but it's that or go back to 3.6 which had been crashing on me a lot over the last few months. 4 has been a major improvement over that experience.

I like the UI, but I'm still struggling to get used to the new placement of the refresh button. I'm going to stick with it for another few days to see if my mind can accept it, otherwise it is going back on the left with the other buttons.

It seems faster, more stable and everything seems to flow better, even with hardware acceleration turned off, so I give it a thumbs up.

 

[Starbreaker]

I downloaded 4 and here are my thoughts...

It is the biggest piece of shit I have ever used and makes Explorer (Which I have to use now) look great. It has only loaded up once on my computer, my computer is old, but there is not reason for it. They seemed to have stolen Chrome's look and just make it run horribly, I have no issues at all with Chrome.

I'm unistalling it and reinstalling 3, because Chrom (last I knew) doesn't work with Netflix.

I watch Netflix on Chrome with no problems. Chrome has supported Silverlight for a while.

 

[Dac]

Anyone else having an issue of Stuttering Flash Playback on FF4? Was fine beforehand but now YouTube and other flash players do nothing but stutter every time I play them full screen.

Also, its a bitch to have to restart in 32 bit mode every time I wanna watch something on DivX player, which is still the best looking video player i've ever used.

 

[TheGodBen]

I had that problem when I briefly tested beta 11 a couple of weeks ago, but I haven't had that problem with the final version. So I can't help. Sorry.