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Mozilla Reveals Firefox 4 Plans
Barence writes "Mozilla has given a breakdown of its plans for Firefox 4. Perhaps the most striking change to Firefox 4 is the user interface, which takes a great deal of inspiration from Google Chrome. 'Something UI designers have known for a long time is that the simpler an interface looks, the faster it will seem,' said director of Firefox Mike Beltzner during the presentation. Also mooted was the ability to give applications such as Gmail and Twitter their own permanent tabs for easy access, and the introduction of a 'switch to tab' button, allowing power users running hundreds of tabs to quickly find the one they want. Beltzner said Mozilla was also looking at replicating Chrome's tactic of silently updating the browser in the background, removing the annoying wait when Firefox first loads up."
Seems faster? In my experience it has been more than "seems", Chrome actually is faster. The thing keeping me on Firefox is the various add-ons which I cannot get in Chrome. If Chrome were to get vertical tabs, that would go a long way towards making a switch.
It would be nice if Firefox did improve performance though. Would be a lot more significant than a trimmed down interface while the program runs just as slow.
Fear is the mind killer.
Thank you! That is the most annoying part of Firefox. I hate when I open Firefox and it makes me wait while it updates, and then when it finally does open, it does so on a pointless tab that offers me absolutely no useful information and once again delays what I'm trying to do.
I don't like the secret/stealth update either. Here's a very simple idea:
First, install the update when I shut down the browser. You're not wasting my time then because I'm done using it. Second, don't give me a tab telling me what I already know. I know it was updated, I just fricken saw it updated. I'm not an idiot.
If someone says he and his monkey have nothing to hide, they almost certainly do.
Is the menu bar really that useful? Apart from using it as a way to get to Preferences, I can't think of a single option that I use the Firefox menu bar for. Also, it takes up some screen area; on small screen devices it may be more optimal to drop the bar make the functions accessible from elsewhere.
Aint broke, don't fix it.
Maybe. On the other hand, Chrome has grabbed 20% market share in one year which is no small feat. There are reasons that people are switching to Chrome - allegedly quicker browsing and the user interface. It's worth experimenting with a similar approach in Firefox. Maybe it will work out, and maybe it won't, but if they don't try we will never know.
"Noticeable" is an understatement. My primary machine is a P8600 dual-core laptop with 2Gb of RAM and firefox + 4 plugins take 5 times more to load than Chrome + 4 plugins. My workhorse is a quad-core Q8400 with 8 Gb RAM. There, Chrome loads instantly, whereas Firefox takes 2 seconds even with no plugins.
I'm using Firefox for development only and just because of Firebug (I know there's a Firebug lite for Chrome but it's not even close, like its Developer Tools).
Personally, I'd rather have the browser go faster than look faster.
Personally, I'd rather have a stable browser with useful features that I use than a browser that can render a page 0.1 second faster. I really don't understand this obsession over the speed of the browser.
1) Have your monitor shake and blow air in your face while opening a browser.
2) Add some motion blur when scrolling a page.
3) Lower your desk. Generally, the closer to the floor you are the faster it seems. I am using go karts as an example.
4) Make ALL youtube videos play at 2x speed except for videos about rival browsers, which shall be played at 0.5x.
I use Bookmarks menu to access and organise my bookmarks. I use the history menu to open tabs I've recently closed or go back to websites I've recently visited. I use the tools menu to access options, addons and clear history. I use the file menu for print, work offline and occasionally import.
In answer to your question then, yes the menu bar is very useful. It provides rapid and structured access to a lot of functionality. When I use an application with a menu bar I can always find the functionality I'm looking for easily but in applications without a menu bar (Office 2007, Chrome etc) I can never find what I'm looking for.
Menu bars provide a consistent interface across all applications so even if you haven't used an application before you know where to find options and featurs. Removing it gives every application a custom interface, making it very hard to use unfamiliar applications. Put a Office 2003 user in front of Office 2007 or an IE6 user in front of IE7/8 and and they'll struggle to use the application. However if you get an Office 2003 user to use Open Office or an IE6 user to use Firefox they'll be able to adapt very quickly thanks to the consistent interface menu bars offer.
When Microsoft started the trend of removing menu bars with Vista and Office 2007 I believe their aim was not to improve the user experience but to lock users into their applications. An Office 2003 user can adapt rapidly to any other Office suite thanks to the similar interfaces, however if someone is only familiar with Office 2007 it will be very hard for them to adapt to other suits because Office 2007 has a completely custom interface that is inconsistent with all other applications. This way they're locked into MS Office and Microsoft wins again.
The removal of the menu bar is a travesty of interface design but it's a massive win for Microsoft and, bizarrely, organisations such as Mozilla seem happy to help them along.