Firefox 4

[jon08]

Well, it's currently still at Beta 11 and the official release probably still a month away, but all I got to say is WOW!

For the first time since switching to Mac over two years ago, I can finally say that this thing is FAST. SNAPPY. 3.6 vs. 4 is like day and night, and it keeps getting better with each beta... It's as fast as Safari now, if not even faster a tad bit. The UI is nicer too among other things.

One of my biggest gripes about FF on Mac has always been the browser speed. It was noticeably slower than the competition (although some "homers" kept insisting it wasn't slow). The UI was kind of ugly as well, and all this prevented me from wanting to switch to it. Oh, and worth mentioning is also the launch time! It has improved greatly, which is awesome.

All I have to say is that I'm really happy with the progress they've made and will probably be switching from Safari once the official version is out.

Anyone else tried it?

 

[roadbloc]

I tried it. It was like a bizarre rip off of Chrome and Opera. Neither of them browsers I'm keen on anyway, so I'll be sticking to Safari.

 

[RichardBeer]

I've always seen the popular browsers as having their pros and cons, for example,

Firefox

Pros- Most powerful, large array of extensions. Also open source if you care about it. Runs across all platforms.
Cons- Slower than most other browsers

Google Chrome

Pros- Fastest, light weight, clean UI. Also open source or at least a version of it is. Runs across all platforms
Cons- Less powerful compared to Firefox etc.

Safari
Pros- Fast, Clean UI, fairly powerful.
Cons- Locked to OS X and Windows, slower than Chrome, closed source (again only relative)

Internet Explorer

Pros- I actually can't think of any.
Cons- Slowest, least secure, locked to Windows, Closed source.

These are just my own subjective experiences with the browsers on Windows, Linux and OS X. I find that for me after a while Chrome on OS X takes a long time to boot and on Windows Safari is terrible. I'm not terribly bothered as to whether the software is open or closed personally but it's nice when it's open.

 

[swisslad]

I agree with previous poster - which you choose depends on your own requirements and taste. After playing with the others when versions are updated I always revert in the end to Safari.

I'm not sure what these benchmark tests really show (just speed? functionality?) but here is the latest.








iMac 2.4 10.6.6 3GB Late 2007 500GB HDD

 

[jon08]

I agree with previous poster - which you choose depends on your own requirements and taste. After playing with the others when versions are updated I always revert in the end to Safari.

I'm not sure what these benchmark tests really show (just speed? functionality?) but here is the latest.

iMac 2.4 10.6.6 3GB Late 2007 500GB HDD

Yeah, I too have noticed that Chrome always seems to be light years ahead of other browsers in the Peacekeeper benchmark, but from what I was told it is not a good benchmark and Chrome's high score doesn't really mean much (it supposedly scores this much because of certain settings)...

I've always seen the popular browsers as having their pros and cons, for example,

Firefox

Pros- Most powerful, large array of extensions. Also open source if you care about it. Runs across all platforms.
Cons- Slower than most other browsers

Used to be slower, but the latest version really is a lot faster than 3.6 imo...

 

[ravenvii]

I've only liked Firefox on Windows because it's the only viable alternative to the crapware that is IE.

However, with the rise of Chrome, that has changed. Chrome is my default browser on Windows, and has just recently became my default on OS X, as well.

 

[wrldwzrd89]

I am impressed with Firefox 4 beta 11 as well. MUCH faster than 3.6.x was. I don't like Chrome very much, because of one glaring feature omission: handling of RSS feeds. Come on Google, you can do better than that!

 

[alust2013]

Beta 11 is far better than 8-10 were. I actually had to switch back to 3.6 because it was so slow, but this one is really good. I like the UI better, plus all the fun stuff you can do with it. I really am not a fan of Chrome, I love simplicity, but I think they oversimplified Chrome, and it just doesn't work as well for me. Plus I have used FF forever, and the new themes are pretty sweet.

 

[jon08]

I like Chrome for its smoothness and amazing speed, but the fact that it doesn't sport favicons in the address bar is a deal breaker for me. I find it a lot easier to navigate through history/bookmarked links with favicons as seen in Firefox, which is one of the main reasons I'm considering a migration to FF now that it has picked up its speed.

 

[Zoddino]

I love FF4 as well, faster scrolling than Chrome for me (since it's gpu accelerated differently from Chrome). With optimizations i'm sure it's going to be even better when final hits. Not to mention that is rumoured Mozilla will accelerate Firefox development after 4 and get more versions until the end of 2011.

One thing I hope they'll improve is the UI, it wastes too much space especially on Mac; If it had the compact view it has when in full screen (both on Windows and on Mac) it would be a lot better on Mac OS X.

 

[HasanDaddy]

I'm loving FireFox 4 Beta --- very snappy, fast, doing everything I could want in a browser

I was upset that it didn't come with a STATUS BAR, but an extension fixed that

The reasons I like Firefox 4 more than Safari -

1. All of your websites are saved and reloaded, if you decide to quit

2. When you type, it searches for TEXT on the webpage you're on

3. Many more options on what to "suggest" on the address bar, as well as better privacy settings in general

The only reason I could possibly like Safari more is that my bookmarks are synced in MobileMe, but FireFox 4 has an iPhone app that does the same thing - not as well, but it helps that it's there over nothing

Anyways - I'm loving FireFox 4 - huge improvement

 

[TreoRenegade]

Question: if you upgrade to the beta FF, is there a mechanism in place so your current extensions (which are friendly to the latest version) transfer over, or is it necessary to reinstall one by one?

 

[wrldwzrd89]

Question: if you upgrade to the beta FF, is there a mechanism in place so your current extensions (which are friendly to the latest version) transfer over, or is it necessary to reinstall one by one?

FF4 re-uses your old profile, so everything is automatically migrated.

 

[netnothing]

I gave up on Firefox. Yeah, 4 is way faster than 3.6, but after using Chrome and realizing that Google actually has the resources to update and improve the browser CONSTANTLY, I got tired of waiting for FF4 to get released. I just don't think the FF team has the resources to keep pace. Sure, they say they want to release updates like Chrome, but does that just mean using bigger version numbers all year long? FF is good for security updates, but too slow for major feature changes.

I'm sticking with Chrome for now. Webkit is fast, the browser is lean, and it gets updated on a regular basis for the better. I really tried to like Safari, but there are too many little things that bugged me. Plus, nowadays there is no need for a dedicated search area. Do it all from the url bar.

-Kevin

 

[netnothing]

I am impressed with Firefox 4 beta 11 as well. MUCH faster than 3.6.x was. I don't like Chrome very much, because of one glaring feature omission: handling of RSS feeds. Come on Google, you can do better than that!

Google does have an official extension that detects and adds the RSS icon back into the url bar. It's an official Google extension as well.

-Kevin

 

[RedTomato]

I downloaded and installed the newest FF 4 RC a few days ago.

My experience so far:

- Changes at top of window takes some getting used to, but I can get used to it. I'm not obsessive over small UI details.

- I miss the status bar at the bottom of the window, and the new system of overlaying the hovered link or the loading progress over the bottom of the displayed website takes some getting used to, but I can get used to it.

- Upgrade was smooth, and everything was carried over, passwords, extensions, currently open tabs, booksmarks etc.

- The memory leak is back I have 20 tabs open (no videos) and I'm at over 500MB real memory used within a few minutes. I don't even have Flash installed (I use Chrome for that) and Adblock is blocking a lot of stuff.

I've restarted FF in all-extensions-disabled-mode and RAM usage is still climbing. I've gone from 400MB real memory to 460MB used in the few minutes it took me to type this post.

If I leave FF open for a few hours or a couple of days (which is normal on OSX, it climbs to over 1GB used and everything starts thrashing.

I may have to go back to 3.6 or move to Chrome / Safari if FF4 is like this.