Firefox 4

[137th Gebirg]

It has known security/privacy issues and vulnerabilities since its release, particularly storing browsing history information and sending it back to mama Google. Some statements have admittedly been borderline conspiracy theory in nature, but I haven't heard if any of those issues have been adequately addressed. The recent complaints about Google Android phones doing the same thing in addition to continuously tracking the phone's location compounds the issue. Chances are it's for nothing more than gathering marketing demographics to find new and efficient ways of selling targeted products to users, but I've never been entirely comfortable with Google's need to know everything about everyone. And when CEO Harry Schmidt said "If you have something that you don't want anyone to know, maybe you shouldn't be doing it in the first place", it positively made my skin crawl.

 

[tomalak301]

What do you have against Chrome?

I used Chrome for about 2 weeks before deciding I didn't really like it. For one, the drop down arrow on the location bar isn't there, which is a huge minus, but also it just seemed to not be as good as Firefox, which I'm using now.

 

[Arrqh]

The recent complaints about Google Android phones doing the same thing in addition to continuously tracking the phone's location compounds the issue.

This is not accurate; the tracking is anonymous and opt-in. Android gives you clear warning that the feature is going to be enabled and what it is doing and you can turn it off at any point.

 

[Snaploud]

Firefox 4 screwed with my text settings. I fixed it with the "NoSquint" add-on.

I hate the new menu. I don't want to see a blurred picture of my desktop (hazy blue with haze icons). It gives me a headache. Somebody please tell me if there's a fix for that part.

 

[FPAlpha]

I was annoyed about the reload button location, but as it turns out you can move it back to where it was:

- Firefox button (orange, upper-left corner) ===> Options ===> Toolbar Layout.
- Drag & drop the Reload button to the left side of the address bar
- Click Done.

That one drove me nuts for quite a while.. it got so bad i was close to returning to "old school" Firefox I had to hit up Google and see how to adapt the layout.

Besides this cosmetic issue i have no complaints though i can't really say i see an improvement on page load speed.. it's still majorly an issue with the site and hosting itself. Sometimes TrekBBs loads up insanely fast and at other times it takes a moment.

One thing i noticed though is when typing here that if i fill up a line and it startes another it takes a few moments for the automatic scroll to kick in and display what i'm writing (usually i may have to correct a typo then).

However F4 looks cleaner and more streamlined and some of the changes i like so i'll be sticking around.

 

[ngc7293]

I was given the chance to update to FF4.1. From what I have read before and from what I have read here, I decided against it. I'll watch the boards and see what people say about following versions and decide then. Maybe FF5 will be better.

 

[PKTrekGirl]

I went ahead and installed the new version as I was experiencing frequent browser crashes with the old one.

Now that I have made my toolbar look reasonably close to the old layout, I'll see what happens. But I hated the new layout.

I watched the little video presentation...and I have no idea who their test group was who wanted all of these changes, but I think some of them were just dopey and counter-intuitive. All I wanted was fewer crashes.

Some of my friends use Chrome and I have been encouraged in that direction....but I'm getting the impression from this thread that Chrome is not all it's cracked up to be either. What, specifically, is wrong with Chrome?

I have Opera installed (did that when the crashing in FF reached critical mass)...but I never got comfortable with it....I have used FF for years and knew where everything was, etc. Although now, not so much so it might be a good time to make a change, if there is a better product.

 

[tomalak301]

The only thing I don't like about Chrome is they don't have the arrow thing on the Drop down bar. I'm so used to it using Explorer and mostly Firefox, that the fact that it's not on Chrome kind of puzzles me. Also, things seem to kind of "bounce" around a bit. Not really sure if I'm making sense, but it's like you're on a page, and some wackiness happens on that page. I just like the cleaner aspects of Firefox better.

 

[Robert Maxwell]

There's no dropdown bar on Chrome because you're supposed to type in what page you want. Or go look at the history (which you can have as another tab if you want.)

I was originally resistant to Chrome but I switched from Firefox a couple years back and have been totally happy with it.

 

[tomalak301]

There's no dropdown bar on Chrome because you're supposed to type in what page you want. Or go look at the history (which you can have as another tab if you want.)

I hate to sound lazy, but that's not a real good reason to take Chrome over Firefox.

 

[Robert Maxwell]

There's no dropdown bar on Chrome because you're supposed to type in what page you want. Or go look at the history (which you can have as another tab if you want.)

I hate to sound lazy, but that's not a real good reason to take Chrome over Firefox.

I'm very keyboard-oriented so it works fine for me. If you are more of a "mousey" person then you might not like it so much.