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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."
First Post !!
...it can win some marketshare back from that company whose business is to track everything one does on the Web.
I hate the Chrome interface. I was hoping that Firefox wouldn't go that route. Does anyone know if the new beta still has an option to use the classic interface?
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
I've heard that Chrome and Opera perform better at this point than Firefox, but I can't help it...I just like the way Firefox "feels". I can't give it up.
WHY CAN'T I QUIT YOU????
Living With a Nerd
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
Nice, thank you! Definitely going to give this a shot tonight.
Living With a Nerd
I've been using their version for a long time. It's great to be able to easily take it with me wherever I go. Nice to see that they've already got a copy available. Personally, anytime I can keep an app out of the registry, I tend to do it, seems to greatly improve stability.
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.
Mod up, please. Informative post, excellent product. Put it on your thumbdrive.
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?
I also liked the Feedback button, a simple and easy way to report bugs and give thanks :)
I couldn't quit Firefox either (and had no intention of doing so). But then Firefox went the way of IE in my book. I can't trust it anymore. There are now sites that will install spyware on my machine by merely visiting them in Firefox. That still hasn't happened to me with Chrome so I guess that's my flavor of the week until it starts getting crudded up as well. I'm not thrilled about the way Chrome "feels" but I am used to it by now. The Chrome UI is less annoying than random spyware.
Quite a bit faster than 3.6...
I'm sure that Gecko isnt faster than Presto at anything. Not 100% sure how it stacks up against WebKit, but I have my doubts about Gecko doing anything faster than it as well.
Gecko really has become slow and bloated, competing on the same level as Trident..
"His name was James Damore."
I know you post was probably just a joke, but still, I'd highly recommend you check out Chrome seriously if you haven't. I'm not the type of person that cares about benchmarks or static screenshots. The thing I value most of all is that intangible "feel" of the software that you allude to, and I don't know what exactly it is, but Chrome "feels" much, much better than Firefox - PARTICULARLY if you're running Linux (Firefox on Linux compared to Firefox on Windows/Mac is like Data vs B4. Sure they look exactly alike, but one's basically just a slow retarded version of the other. Chrome feels as good or better on Linux vs Windows).
If you like the more traditional look to your browsers, I'll say that Midori looks promising, but it's still not proven stable enough for me.
"People who think they know everything are very annoying to those of us who do."-Mark Twain
Thanks for the tip, the fast release, and more general all portableapps that really make life easier! You guys rule!
I'm not too excited about Firefox 4.0 coming because it means that it will probably break compatibility with all my addons and re-arrange my user interface to what Mozilla thinks is most productive. I've continued to use Firefox because of how customizable it is, but that wont matter if they can't clean it up and keep performance on par with the other competitors. Chrome finally added extensions and just seems to make progress in leaps and bounds when they release a new version. I wonder if the efforts to make a cleaner, more reliable, faster browser are constantly being subverted by new features like improved javascript engines and HTML5, can we just slow down a bit?
I see that the FireFox moderation fans are out in force.
"His name was James Damore."
Looks like MS Office 2007, which SUCKS!!!!
Please leave the option of using the classic interface. Concentrate on making it standards compliant and less blot.
Nope, but there is no guarantee that it won't. At least this way you know that you've got a back up if something doesn't quite work.
still shit compared to IE 8...
Has anyone found a way to get separate stop and refresh buttons?
I don't know why Mozilla want to take my menus and buttons off me, but if things continue like this the Firefox user interface will soon be a blank window.
So... where are the encoders for WebM? Don't give any links to Windows-only programs as it's useless to OSS users.
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.
Excellent version, I would just like to know is there a way to copy my extensions from my local installation?
Keep hitting ctrl+t thinking i have no tabs open. This is going to take some getting used to
No close, minimize, maximize buttons at top?!? Come one guys that’s basic windows design 101
This was released about a week ago. Saying that, I just clicked the 'Check for updates' in the Help menu and it said a new version (4.0 Beta 1) is available - the same version I've been using for a week. I updated, and the only change I can see is the addition of the Feedback menu next to my APB and LastPass menus.
Ok, here's a single counterexample to prove you wrong:
http://web.mit.edu/bzbarsky/www/mandelbrot-clean.html
Try it in the Firefox 4 beta, and compare it to the latest Chrome release.
The reason you got modded down is probably because you made a dramatic, blanket claim without backing it up with facts.
Incidentally, browser performance isn't a simple yes/no issue -- it depends on a number of different pieces of technology. E.g. there's DOM and CSS, graphics, and Javascript. Chrome, for instance, does Javascript overall faster than FF (barring some instances, as above), hence Mozilla's work on JaegerMonkey.
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.
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.
We're talking real-world (not synthetic benchmarks, but actual page loads) improvements of 100% or more, probably due largely to the fact that Chrome can execute Javascript on something like a reasonable schedule.
Chrome has isolated tabs, but crashes more than Firefox anyway (at least for me).
For me it's quite the reverse. And I'm running dailies!
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?
Chrome isn't "entirely controlled by a giant behemoth" either, it's based on WebKit. And Chromium is entirely open-source so if you really want to, you can see what's going on in there, change things, et cetera. Meanwhile, every time I've ever installed Firefox it's defaulted to google search with suggestions/autocomplete, which means that google is spying on you when you use firefox.
P.S. Gecko is still much faster at some things, i.e. image rendering and animation.
If every damned site out there wasn't overusing Javascript that might be a compelling argument.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
go here: http://nightly.mozilla.org/
Anyway of getting flash working? Normally you copy flashplayer.xpt and NPSWF32.dll to \App\firefox\plugins\. However that directory no longer exists.. Any suggestions?
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.
P.S. Gecko is still much faster at some things, i.e. image rendering and animation.
If every damned site out there wasn't overusing Javascript that might be a compelling argument.
A lot of sites with heavy image content scroll smoothly in Firefox, Opera, and even IE, but struggle along at about 5 fps when scrolling with the webkit browsers. That's my main issue with Chrome.
"I zero-index my hamsters" - Willtor (147206)
Fund that the directory is now \Data\plugins - copied over the files on the locked down pc and everything worked....
I am all for faster browsers. As it will allow for more interesting interactive applications. But lets face it folks we are 99% of the time waiting on things to download. That is the major bottleneck. It is measurable. Webpage render time is such a small part of what I do on the internet its not even factored in. Someday it may be.
Let me put this into perspective. I will pick one of the slowest part of our computers, the hard drive. The current average seems to be 30-80 MB per second. Average web speed in the united states? About 80k per second (DSL 1.5 meg). Some have it better at 300k to 5 MB per second depending on where you live and how much your willing to pay for it. Now lets say you have one of the 'good' connections at 5MB per second, and assume you can get full use out of it from some web server (not likely). You are still anywhere from 6-20x slower than the slowest part of your computer.
I put in a proxy server so I could measure what I am doing on the internet. Between me and my GF we waited for nearly 28 hours last month on things to download from the internet or about 14 hours each. We downloaded between the two of us 16 gig of stuff. So for 8 gig of data I waited 14 hours. My connection if it was maxed out would have downloaded all 16 gig in about 6 hours. To do the same thing off my HD would have been a few mins. Also remember I had a proxy server in the mix here. So this time would be even bigger (about 10%).
We're talking real-world (not synthetic benchmarks, but actual page loads) improvements of 100% or more, probably due largely to the fact that Chrome can execute Javascript on something like a reasonable schedule.
Um, I'm talking real world too, I don't really look at the benchmarks. 100% faster at something I already feel is more than good enough is a whole lotta nothing for me. You may feel differently, of course, but the point of my original post was to point out that you shouldn't feel its somehow nerd-wrong not to switch from Firefox.
If every damned site out there wasn't overusing Javascript that might be a compelling argument.
I think it will become important, if/when Canvas gets traction. I've made some stuff involving multiple layers of transparent PNGs with transiotns between them using javascript. Firefox can render it all very smoothly, including animated transitions. Chrome and Safari, on the other hand, almost entirely choke up, and Opera is very slow. I decided to try the whole thing in Canvas to see if it would be faster, but the results were exactly the same. Firefox's canvas rendering ability is exceptionally good.
What spyware? As far as I know the vast majority comes from plugins, not Firefox itself (Flash, Adobe Reader, etc). The second vector of attack is Javascript, but not only they're usually fixed very soon, you can use NoScript to stop them.
Dilbert RSS feed
I've heard that Chrome and Opera perform better at this point than Firefox
Who cares?
The remote site and/or your network connection is almost always the bottleneck. Try using a new computer and a several year old one to browse the web. I'd be shocked if you could notice any significant difference.
Because the whole interface FREEZES when rendering a tough page, while chrome and opera perform like modern applications? That's a pretty good reason to quit.
WHY CAN'T I QUIT YOU????
I made a similar joke about Linux recently. Linux is like a crazy crack-head ex-girlfriend who keeps coming back, seducing you, emptying your wallet and then running off with your best friend leaving you to wallow in self pity with Windows and OSX.
WHY CAN'T I QUIT YOU????
Slashdotter Extension, duh.
My God, it's Full of Source!
OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
Its really annoying to see everyone saying their browser runs "faster", then browsing pages on any kind of out-of-date pc and seeing it go as fast as cold molasses. Come on, just to browse websites you need to buy new computers? It's not easy to make standards good for all, but some kind of tolerance for older equipment is necessary too, at least in public standards of stuff.
Build your own energy sources from scratch. http://otherpower.com/
There were times when I couldn't follow links on Google or Facebook anymore. I had to manually copy link location and paste them. There were also a few times that ads would randomly pop crap up even if I didn't have a browser open at the time advertising spyware removal. The one that made me throw in the towel on Firefox was the one that looked like Windows Security Center. That thing was so annoying and I got it several times. I updated Firefox every time I got a notification to do so. I don't install executables unless I know where they came from. I don't go clicking OK on those obvious malware pop-ups. I don't surf porn or play Flash games online. Facebook is probably the sketchiest site I frequent and I don't have any 3rd party Facebook apps installed there. I feel I'm a fairly responsible web user. I don't really care what browser I'm using. I just want it to work without having to fiddle with settings or install plug-ins. Firefox did that for a long time, but it's my experience that time is over. So far I'm 6 months into using Chrome and haven't had a spyware outbreak yet. I hope it lasts but if it doesn't I'll be right back out there looking for new options (and re-evaluating old options like Firefox and IE).
While I have never seen the speed increases that everyone has (yes, studies, studies, studies -- but in my real world use it doesn't make a difference) Chrome simply doesn't have a viable AdBlock and thus is totally useless for me. YMMV.
Ok, here's a single counterexample to prove you wrong:
http://web.mit.edu/bzbarsky/www/mandelbrot-clean.html
Interesting example. Here are some results using a 7-year-old laptop (a newer PC would probably be a lot faster).
454ms - Opera 10.60
553ms - Firefox 3.6.6
661ms - Epiphany 2.30.2
992ms - Chromium 6.0.453.0
The two WebKit browsers were the slowest, while the Presto browser was fastest. It's not always so, of course.
Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities. - Voltaire
I don't need more support for XYZ whatever. I need it to be stable and fast, right now it's sort of a Netscape 4, its bloated, slow, and hangs ocasionally. And no i'm not using tons of extensions.
> We're talking real-world (not synthetic benchmarks, but actual page loads)
I'd be interested in the data here. Can you point me to a particular page you're thinking of?
Ok, here's a single counterexample to prove you wrong:
Faster in Presto than Gecko. My Blanket statement stands. Oh, did you mean my other non-blanket statement? Yeah.... maybe you should put away the fan mode and start thinking critically.
"His name was James Damore."
Your blanket statement was to the effect that Gecko is always the slowest of the bunch, comparable to only Trident (what specific area of performance you never mention, implying performance of everything). Such are the ingredients of a troll.
Anyway, I've done a stupid thing and compared Opera 10.60 with the FF4 beta (not 3.6.6 as per above poster), just for you.
On my PC, Opera and FF4 are approximately neck-to-neck on the above benchmark, with FF4 having a small but consistent lead of about 10-15%. On zooming in to render in detail, FF's margin increases.
So how about another counterexample:
http://www.galbraiths.org/benchmarks/pixastic.html
FF4B1: 476ms
Opera 10.60: 827ms
Still standing by your claim that Opera is "faster" at everything?
Chrome simply doesn't have a viable AdBlock and thus is totally useless for me. YMMV.
Do you find AdBlock 2.0 on Chrome 6.x inadequate, and why?
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Why do your portable apps need an installer? Can't you just provide a simple zip file?
I know there have been some problems with Firefox supporting SVG in img tags but I was still sort of hoping they would've sorted it out for 4.x, it's a nice feature (and from a security standpoint they could just go with one of the "lesser" SVG standards that don't include scripting).
Greylisting is to SMTP as NAT is to IPv4
Wow that's a great idea, if only there were some futuristic operating system that kept apps self-contained inside a single icon of some sort... that could be drag and dropped from one place to another... you could put them side by side in the same folder and stick a version number at the end of the name then run whichever you wanted.
The future is going to be soo cool, I can't wait.
Cwm, fjord-bank glyphs vext quiz
Does this Firefox version supports WebM/VP8/HTML5?
Is it possible to watch YouTube videos without Flash now?
Well this build seems to "impact" the standard install so that it's pretty much unusable, bookmarks are not transferred and none of the essential addons are compatible...however, it's easy to just go back by replacing the .app on a mac with a backup. I tried it, like it, but can't use it till addons like 1password or xmarks or downloadsthemall catch up.
I think therefore I can't be ~TTNH
Wow that's a great idea, if only there were some futuristic operating system that kept apps self-contained inside a single icon of some sort... that could be drag and dropped from one place to another... you could put them side by side in the same folder and stick a version number at the end of the name then run whichever you wanted.
You can do this on Windows for most apps (it depends on how they're written) and there's no OS AFAIK that force its apps into a single folder (or icon as you put it - but encoding an app into an icon would be idiotic). On OSX most apps are delivered in a single folder, but it's not OS enforced and does not guarantee that you can run multiple versions of the app as it may still store it's settings/user data in such a way that they conflict.
Firefox has way more add-ons and plugins. ..
Adblock+flashblock+noscript+webdeveloper_toolbar+firebug+TorButton+betterprivacy+bugmenot+taco+passiverecon+sessionmanager+skipscreen+colorzilla+greasemonkey+httpseverywhere+measureit+showip+tabmix+viewsourcechart+tamperdata+mozillasniffer+trackmenot+xmarks.
I can't imagine browsing without these add-ons. Chrome doesn't have them. Opera doesn't have them. IE. . . bwahahahaha!
These are my friends, See how they glisten. See this one shine, how he smiles in the light.
Is this fixed? Am I the only one who finds it extremely annoying to restart after each plugin install or update?
-- Binary Finary
As long as they don't change anything about their keyboard shortcuts I'll live with the rest of the issues. Firefox has been losing my patience with all of it's bugs, but i'm attached to it's plugins and keyboard shortcuts. Everytime i've tried Opera or Chrome i come right back to Firefox, for those reasons. I hate Opera's keyboard shortcuts and Chrome's tabs-on-top layout.
If you lend someone $20 and never see that person again, it was probably worth it.
Thanks for that!
Copied places.sqlite, cookies.sqlite over to the portable version and I had my 3.x browsing history synced to 4beta.
Under XP/Server 2003, only extensions that don't work correctly are Forecast Fox and BetterPrivacy. Add to SearchBar, FlashBlock, and oldBar work even though people have said it's incompatible.
The do? But oh wait you lose all your settings. And settings from one version of the app would be used for another, which could disable most of your extensions. So, ultimately, no... they don't.
Portable versions of Firefox, GIMP, LibreOffice, etc
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.
Several reasons that the portable installer stomps all over a zip file:
1. The portable installer is a smaller download
2. The portable installer doesn't require any external software to extract it
3. The portable installer automatically detects an existing instance of the PortableApps.com Platform, offers to install into it, and tells the menu that a new app is installed so it can display it.
4. The portable installer makes it easy to have options like whether to install additional languages without having to manually copy or delete files
5. The portable installer supports upgrades and can handle moving, removing and updating files between versions as apps often change internal files on major version releases
6. The portable installer can preserve any plugins or add-ons while handling point (5)
7. The portable installer can download apps from online in the cases where we don't yet have permission to repackage them (at PortableApps.com, we only do legal apps)
Portable versions of Firefox, GIMP, LibreOffice, etc
If it loads the ads it's inadequate.
Unlike on Firefox, AdBlock for Chrome doesn't actually block the ads from loading. It simply prevents them from displaying.
Almost none of them work with 4.0b1. :-(
Forecast Fox could be made to work here http://forums.mozillazine.org/viewtopic.php?f=23&t=1876795&sid=20e6ed03a165322bb459cf6a8a180d0d and BetterPrivacy's author has a developer build (1.47.5dev) that works under 4.0beta at http://netticat.ath.cx/Install The BetterPrivacy install crashed my machine (and I run as a limited user). After the restart, the add-on manager showed it installed correctly. I clicked on install multiple times due to me blocking the website from installing add-ons, and the add-on manager didn't allow me to remove extensions (duplicated) before the restart.
I know you asked for FF4 but...
FF3.6.6: 248 ms.
Chrome5.0375.99: 551 ms.
What was your point again?
OK - Firefox 4 (4.0b2pre, x86_64, Kubuntu 10.04) 250ms ... to draw the initial image. Expanding the same area on each, Chrome took 1797 ms, Firefox took 203 ms.
Chrome (5.0.375.86 beta, x86_64, Kubuntu 10.04) 787ms
Actually they fixed it a bit already.
http://code.google.com/p/adblockforchrome/
Some things will still slip through, but they are working on it.
While Chrome's lean UI can initially take some getting used to for former FF users (like myself), its actually quite a boon because Chrome's larger browsing area that is essential for most laptops' screen aspect ratio and smaller resolution. While Chrome lacks a dedicated searchbar for multiple search engines, one can be downloaded as an extension. I'm grateful for the new UI changes in FF beta because there are a few shortcomings of Google Chrome that I believe will not change anytime soon: 1. Chrome has no dedicated proxy settings (except thru CL arg). It relies on system proxy settings. 2. Chrome's extensions are not as powerful as FF's addons (ex: no NoScript) 3. Chrome still cannot do true adblocking (see #2). Current extensions only hide ads. 4. Chrome has a unique ID for its browsers, allowing Google to potentially track all its users. Note that #2 can be overcome with hostfiles or Privoxy but using Privoxy makes #1 an issue. For anonymous browsing, #4 can be overcome with Tor, which also makes #1 an issue. While Chrome does have on-the-fly js blocking, it only works on a per-page basis and lacks the granularity and features of FF's NoScript addon.
I hear you. Adobe has no love for 64-bit linux :*(
Unlike on Firefox, AdBlock for Chrome doesn't actually block the ads from loading. It simply prevents them from displaying.
While I have seen some ads slip through on Chrome, Adblock 2.x on Chrome 6.x does block the ads from loading.
Please try to be better-informed before posting. A quick google search would have saved you from this error. It will make you post fewer incorrect comments.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
That feature is missing for ages now. One tab with bad Javascript can slow everything down, because Firefox still has neither multithreading nor separate processes for each tab. Most other browsers are ahead there.