Firefox Beta 4 (Win)

[Kushan]

I am absolutely loving this beta. Perhaps it's a placebo effect, but beta 4 seems to be running a LOT faster for me than beta 3 did. Google Homepage (I refuse to call it iGoogle, sorry chaps) loads instantly, whereas previously there was maybe a second or 2's delay.

[fred65]

@Kushan - I totally agree with you - even scrolling through tabs is quicker, with FF2 it used to sit there for ages when you used the History button... now it's instantly opening!

Very nice, unfortunately I just can't see it beating maxthon - at least in scrolling (Maxthon is amazingly responsive when scrolling).

[Rigby]

Well I've gone back to Firefox 2 for now. Firefox 3 was giving me problems on some sites, including Neowin. When editing posts for example I was getting random garbage characters all over the form, like it wasn't refreshing properly. I hate the new theme too, so I'll wait for the final and hope the bugs have been worked out and some nice user made themes are ready for it.

[Kushan]

That's very strange, I had absolutely no problems using neowin with FF3. Is it possible you have a dodgy extension or plugin installed?

[Rigby]

Shouldn't have been, I completely removed Firefox 2 and all related plugins and extensions for it and did a clean install of Firefox 3. It might have been something else on my computer, but all I can tell is that it does not happen in Firefox 2 but did in 3. I should have taken a screenshot I guess, but it would look something like this ||| | || all over the edit page.

[Kushan]

It works fine for me. Quickedit is the same. Very odd, though, I'm not sure what would cause the page to get all messed up like that.

[Ricardo Gil]

I am absolutely loving this beta. Perhaps it's a placebo effect, but beta 4 seems to be running a LOT faster for me than beta 3 did. Google Homepage (I refuse to call it iGoogle, sorry chaps) loads instantly, whereas previously there was maybe a second or 2's delay.

Damn, I was going to write the same thing. Looks much faster than beta 3. But Hotmail still doesn't load in the ajax version :(.

[Rigby]

I don't know, seemed fine at first. Forgot to mention I had the browser open for at least six hours, not sure if that would have anything to do with it.

[Kushan]

Mine has been running for about that long as well and so far no problems (FYI, Memory usage is at about 117Mb). I'll update if anything does go wrong, though.

[nemo]

Not sure if anyone mentioned this.... but Fx3b4 gets a 67/100 on Acid3.

[TruckWEB]

Not sure if anyone mentioned this.... but Fx3b4 gets a 67/100 on Acid3.

Far from the 90/100 of Safari 3.1 (WebKit)....

[nemo]

Well this topic isn't about Safari 3.1, now is it? :rolleyes:

[Kushan]

I only get 66/100 but still, good improvement.

[Ricardo Gil]

Not sure if anyone mentioned this.... but Fx3b4 gets a 67/100 on Acid3.

I get a headache on Acid...

[Roller_ball]

Tried this version but whenever I checked spelling, FF crashed. I mean every time.

Anyone had this and fixed it :(

[+John. Subscriber¹]

This is a very good update.

It crashed a few times in the about:config screen when searching for the network subsection, but apart from that it's been pretty stable.

Nice memory usage as well (Y)

[CrisCr0ss]

why am i getting so many problems half my extensions from beta 3 no longer work, my bookmarks toolbar has disappeared and typing anything in the address bar + enter has no effect

also alt+d which was a shortcut to type into address bar now brings up and open url dialog instead, i want b3 back :(

may I add, I used the Mozilla update

[Roller_ball]

Dont worry sorted the crashing spell check thing :)

[CrisCr0ss]

well it turns out the reason for my dilemma was caused by one addon TabMixPlus (0.3.6.0.071228-nightly-fix) however it word is this dev build http://tmp.garyr.net/tab_mix_plus-dev-build.xpi (0.3.6.1.080302) works in beta 4

:edit: tested this new dev build works great

Ps. anyone know how to get multirow bookmark toolbar again Since FireFox3 I haven't been able to achieve this

[Jimmie]

Ps. anyone know how to get multirow bookmark toolbar again Since FireFox3 I haven't been able to achieve this

http://userstyles.org/styles/5658

[Malisk]

I am absolutely loving this beta. Perhaps it's a placebo effect, but beta 4 seems to be running a LOT faster for me than beta 3 did. Google Homepage (I refuse to call it iGoogle, sorry chaps) loads instantly, whereas previously there was maybe a second or 2's delay.

I would normally say it's placebo, but this time it's probably not as they did some major improvements to the Javascript engine for this build.

So especially JS-heavy sites will benefit, which would be most complex ones, AJAX'y ones, etc. Things like Gmail and iGoogle.

See more here:

http://blog.wired.com/monkeybites/2008/03/...eta-4-puts.html

A few on Reddit also tested this against the SunSpider Javascript test suite and got:

- Fx 3 Beta 3: 8215.4ms +/- 1.0%

- Fx 3 Beta 4: 3279.4ms +/- 0.9%

... and ..

Firefox 2.0.0.9 - 23252.0ms

3.0 beta 4 - 7770.4ms

That'd be about a 300% improvement on that benchmark compared to Firefox 2.

It's probably even on par with Opera now, which has earlier been among the fastest browsers on the market in terms of Javascript.

[McoreD]

I installed this over Beta 3 and now Firefox crashes on load. :(

[shakey_snake]

It's probably even on par with Opera now, which has earlier been among the fastest browsers on the market in terms of Javascript.

On my machine the new beta is 30% faster than Opera.

[+Warwagon MVC]

I love the new security certificate view It rocks.

[shakey_snake]

Yeah, his name is Larry. :laugh: