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Mozilla Releases First Beta of Firefox 4

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MacRumors

macrumors bot
Original poster
Apr 12, 2001
63,548
30,866



115112-firefox_4_beta_1.jpg


Mozilla yesterday announced the release of Firefox 4 Beta 1 for Windows, Mac, and Linux. Not all of the changes scheduled for Firefox 4 are available on Mac and Linux yet, however, as major visual changes including the move of tabs to the top of the window (a feature tested and discarded by Apple in a Safari 4 public beta last year) and implementation of the Firefox button for quick access to commonly-used actions are Windows-only for the time being.
There is a lot more to this beta than a facelift on Windows, including:

- New Add-Ons Manager: gives you more space to manage your Add-Ons, Themes and Plugins. Customizing your browser has never been easier!
- HD Video: Watch hardware-accelerated, super-smooth, HD-quality HTML5 video on YouTube using the new WebM format.
- Privacy improvements: Mozilla always puts privacy first, and this latest beta fixes flaws in some Web standards that could expose your browser history.
- Crash Protection: Experience uninterrupted browsing (now available on all platforms) - when a plugin crashes or freezes, you can resume browsing by simply refreshing the page.
- Performance: We know that performance is important. In this version, we focused on improving responsiveness at start-up and during page loads. This is just the beginning for performance improvements in Firefox 4.
Click to expand...
Firefox 4 also includes a number of under-the-hood enhancements to assist web developers with their projects. Finally, the new beta integrates a new Feedback Add-On that allows users to quickly send input back to Mozilla and to anonymously participate in Mozilla studies of web usage if they so choose.

Article Link: Mozilla Releases First Beta of Firefox 4
 
Article Link
https://www.macrumors.com/2010/07/07/mozilla-releases-first-beta-of-firefox-4/
boshii

boshii

macrumors 68040
Jul 6, 2008
3,699
784
Atlanta, GA
i tried this yesterday but had to downgrade back to the current version because youtube videos wouldn't load
 
T

Tyre

macrumors regular
May 23, 2010
143
0
Baltimore, MD
I used to love Firefox before Chrome went Mac, they really need to increase performance (i.e. start-up times and page-load speed) and stability before I switch back. Will definitely download the final release to compare.
 
acfusion29

acfusion29

macrumors 68040
Nov 8, 2007
3,128
1
Toronto
installed it yesterday, crashed right away and ran slow (i know it's beta, i know..)

i think the windows version has tabs on top.. how come this doesn't? ...
 
P

PlaceofDis

macrumors Core
Jan 6, 2004
19,241
6
it's not a completely native Mac app yet, is it?

and the GUI still has a long way to go.
 
Nebulance

Nebulance

macrumors 6502
Mar 11, 2010
412
150
Tyre said:
I used to love Firefox before Chrome went Mac, they really need to increase performance (i.e. start-up times and page-load speed) and stability before I switch back. Will definitely download the final release to compare.
Click to expand...

That's funny because I've found Firefox to be faster than Safari (even Safari 5). However, I stick with Safari because I can view PDFs in the browser -- I don't like that Firefox automatically downloads it to my machine.

Unless of course, I can't find the option to turn that off in Firefox...?
 
DCJ001

DCJ001

macrumors 6502a
Dec 12, 2007
521
253
Java Plug-In Needed?

I installed the FireFox 4 beta and, when I logged in at TDAmeritrade, I was given the following message, when I tried a couple of the features, indicating that FireFox 4 needs me to install a Java plug-in.

9a3857f609461a3d68502bbda32427e9.png

But I didn't have this problem with FireFox 3.66

Any suggestions?
 
xgman

xgman

macrumors 603
Aug 6, 2007
5,672
1,378
hard for me to get used to without any compatible add on yet. Not even google toolbar works.
ver 3.6.8 "Namoroka" beta seems to work better for now.
 
Stella

Stella

macrumors G3
Apr 21, 2003
8,838
6,341
Canada
I tried FF4 yesterday but the screen was all messed up as in the picture above.

However, this is BETA, not a finished product so there will be issues and not all plugins will work, until either / and - bugs are fixed, the plugins are updated by their authors to be FF4 compatible.

Hope they'll improve start up times.
 
tatonka

tatonka

macrumors 6502
Aug 25, 2009
495
40
Just read about it and downloaded it instantly .. works great for me.

I had to turn the feedback feature off, otherwise I had two firefox globes in the applications switcher. And a big minus is that the keyfixer addon doesn't work yet (still one of the most annoying things on a Mac that home and end jump to the beginning and end of the document instead of the line).

Other than that it works great and is pretty fast.

T.
 
F

fstlambo

macrumors member
Mar 6, 2010
31
0
Seems to work great with me...just as or a little faster than safari on my MPB.

I just also like the smoother look too, performance will be added later...but I don't mind.
 
KaneBaker

KaneBaker

macrumors member
Oct 15, 2009
80
0
HTML5 video fragmentation is showing it's head. Firefox will not support h.264, chrome will likely not support it either.

Meaning flash will be the best solution. Googles video format will be open so other browsers could adopt it. I know nothing about the codec yet. H.264 is my go to codec for device encoding and youtube right now.
 
Lord Vader

Lord Vader

macrumors 6502a
Apr 26, 2010
518
0
Death Star
Tell me when it has normal native UI look, but now it's half-baked inconsistent UI.

screenshot20100707at193.png


I thought "Tabs on Top" saves some pixels, but do you see it here? It just puts tab above address bar.
 
ArtOfWarfare

ArtOfWarfare

macrumors G3
Nov 26, 2007
9,561
6,059
When was the last time something truly new and useful was done for a web browser?

They're getting ever faster, but it seems to me the last useful feature added to web browsers were tabs.

I think a browser that really needs an update is the one in iOS... it seriously needs the ability to Find text on a page, plus the tab system is slow and retarded (you can only see one at a time, it takes forever to page from tab 1 to tab 8) plus it scrolls slow (try scrolling to the bottom of the front page of MacRumors,) plus the bookmarks organization is abysmal (and no "auto-click" option like in Safari on the desktop.)
 
N

nickweston

macrumors member
Mar 16, 2006
71
0
Ff

Tried using Firefox...no real advantage for me over Safari 5, which I love.

But most of all, it's just not good looking to my eyes! Got that Windows vibe...
 
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