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Firefox 4.0 Beta 1 Released
balster neb writes "Mozilla has released the first Beta of Firefox 4, the next major version of the popular web browser. Apart from the new 'Chromified' tabs-on-top UI, there are many major improvements in performance and HTML5 support. This release also adds support for the new WebM video format. Other changes include faster DOM and CSS performance, improved UI responsiveness, hardware 2D acceleration, experimental WebGL support, and better JavaScript performance (though this beta does not include the new JaegerMonkey JIT engine). More details on the Mozilla blog."
Just tried it out. You can enable the menu toolbar, and move the tabs back to the original position.. So yes.
Yes, it is possible to revert to original look by disabling "tabs on top". It is also possible to disable/enable menus.
However, I liked tabs on top of the addressbar, feels more intuitive.
At PortableApps.com, we released the portable package of Firefox 4.0 Beta 1 yesterday soon after 4.0 Beta 1 dropped. It's a great way to test the latest beta without impacting your current Firefox install since it runs self-contained from a single directory. You can even install it to your Desktop or Documents folder.
Try Mozilla Firefox 4.0 Beta 1 out today with Mozilla Firefox, Portable Edition 4.0 Beta 1
Mozilla Firefox, Portable Edition 4.0 Beta 1 homepage
Portable versions of Firefox, GIMP, LibreOffice, etc
After some UI tweaking, I got it looking and behaving like Firefox/Mozilla always has, and I'm left with a browser that's slightly faster and has better interfaces for some things. The drag-to-resize text fields in all websites is wonderful. The new extensions management interface is nicer but will take some getting used to.
For every problem, there is at least one solution that is simple, neat, and wrong.
Why do you need to? Chrome renders pages faster, sure, but I don't really give a shit about a couple of milliseconds rendering time. Chrome has isolated tabs, but crashes more than Firefox anyway (at least for me).
Finally, when you have a really nice open source browser that isn't entirely controlled by a giant behemoth that knows everything about you, why not use it? Seriously, do we need to be throwing more power Google's way?
P.S. Gecko is still much faster at some things, i.e. image rendering and animation.
It's a great way to test the latest beta without impacting your current Firefox install
much like the version you download straight from Mozilla. Seriously, has there ever been a Firefox Beta, RC or nightly build that at all impacted your standard install?
Can I ask how long you have actually been using the Internet for?
Because as recent as around 5-10 years ago, when Google were a lot smaller incidentally, I can recall using web browsers (mainly IE) where it was getting almost impossible to browse anywhere without 8 or 9 pop-up windows appearing that advertised all manner of sexual and non-sexual services and products - nowadays it's an unobtrusive Google ad at the side of the page or maybe an Adobe Flash advert or two at the top or bottom.
I don't believe Google is perfect by any means but ultimately they do make some pretty cool, good & free stuff that they let me use in return for finding out a bit about where I am and what I'm doing. I know this to be the case *BEFORE* I make the choice of using their stuff and, because I keep myself informed and check these things out, I have a fair degree of control over what information I do and don't choose to reveal about myself - because I consider myself a responsible adult.
Unfortunately, stuff you put on the Internet has to be paid for somehow which means financing it through advertising/marketing, making the user pay for it or a combination of the two. I'm sure that if Google wasn't there in its number one position, then Microsoft, Apple or A. N. Other would be there doing the same thing, and more than likely with closed, locked-in standards meaning that you can never go anywhere else.
Even in my case, having gone away from Windows Mobile-based phones to an Android one in the past 18 months, as a mainly Linux user anyway, for the first time I have been able to get rid of the necessity of a Windows and MS Office installation purely because I *HAD* to use Outlook & Activsync to synchronise with my mobile phone. The fact is, I use both Windows XP and Linux, managed to ditch MS Office in favour of OpenOffice and now have pretty good transparency across both OSes.
So, no, I'm not a Google fanboi but I do credit them with having done more to assist me in getting to using open standards and Open Source software than any other company has - a more than fair swap for sometimes wanting a bit of information about me.
Gentoo Linux - another day, another USE flag.
Gecko may not be as fast as WebKit or Presto, but come on... comparing it to Trident?
Fastest to slowest:
WebKit/Presto, Gecko, (insert from 5 to 10 imaginary rendering engines here), Trident.
http://www.webmproject.org/tools/
First result on google for webm.....
For those of you who don't like the big ugly orange button, Download Squad tells you how to change its colour or make it transparent.
Avantslash - View Slashdot cleanly on your mobile phone.
Finally, a major browser that supports websockets besides Chrome. hey IE get off your ass. Don't make us have to take another 15% of your market share.
This is my sig. There are many like it but this one is mine.
I run the beta, using all my old extensions (Mozilla helpfully provides an extension that lets you ignore the compatibility field). In response to your post, I tried to test all of them. So far I noticed a few extensions not working properly:
Download Helper doesn't seem to detect any videos.
DownThemAll is incapable of actually downloading anything.
Firebug is rendered completely inoperable. The menu is there but empty and the statusbar icon doesn't do anything.
FireFTP is even more inoperable than Firebug, not even showing any menu entries.
Fission doesn't work anymore but has been rendered obsolete anyway.
TabGroups Manager hasn't yet adapted to the new layout code so the tab group bar is always the lowermost toolbar above the content pane. Other than that it works just fine.
So, what does work?
Add Bookmark Here^2 works as expected.
Console^2 works as expected.
Download Statusbar (officially compatible) works as expected.
Element Properties works as expected.
Flashblock works as expected.
Ghostery seems to work as expected.
Leet Key works as expected (at least the text transformers do).
Live HTTP Headers works as expected.
NukeAnything and Remove It Permanently seem to work as expected.
RefControl seems to work as expected.
Slashdotter works as expected. (This reminds me, perhaps with Fx 4 the new comment system will work again...)
Tab Mix Plus works as expected.
User Agent Switcher works as expected.
Web Developer seems to work as expected, although I don't use the toolbar, which has benn reported to be broken. The context menu is intact and functioning, though.
Overall, the tally is not bad for a new major version. I think that most of the broken extensions will be fixed by the time (or shortly after) 4.0 proper comes out.
USE HOT GRITS WITH STATUE OF NATALIE PORTMAN (NAKED AND PETRIFIED)
Even Internet Explorer 6 got one in Windows XP SP2.
GLaDOS for President 2016! "Well here we are again. It's always such a pleasure." -- GLaDOS, 2011
4.0 will be the first version with first class 64 bit support from Mozilla.
For some reason, the 64 bit builds aren't on the main download site, but are available here:
http://releases.mozilla.org/pub/mozilla.org/firefox/releases/4.0b1/
Linux and Mac only at the moment, I assume Windows 64 bit builds are to follow in later versions.
From the greatly improved performance scores, It appears that the tracing JIT is finally enabled on the Linux 64 bit version.
Now where's my 64 bit flash adobe?
Blessed are the pessimists, for they have made backups.
SVG in img tags and background images is going to be in for FF4, but will land in a later beta.