Meet Firefox 4.0.1

[tuckeratlarge]

I keep hearing people gloat about has fast it is, but how is the text rendering? Has it improved? I've tried beta 6 and 7 but couldn't stick with it because pages look like crap.

Beta 8 font rendering looks like crap agreed, if Mozilla don't change it then 3.6 will stay on as my browser. Then again is there any performance gain to be won/lost with turning the feature off?

[The_Decryptor Veteran]

Turning off DirectWrite reduces the text quality, and also disables Direct2D (You don't want to mix the old API with the new API)

Edit: Oh yeah, and it also disables a bunch of other stuff like support for some international scripts and changes the way Firefox sees fonts, but that just brings it into par with previous versions. And any bugs in DirectWrite will need to be fixed by Microsoft, and it's very likely that will happen (IE9 also uses DirectWrite, and is running into the same bugs)

[bogas04]

Beta 8 font rendering looks like crap agreed, if Mozilla don't change it then 3.6 will stay on as my browser. Then again is there any performance gain to be won/lost with turning the feature off?

Turn off hardware acceleration = less memory usage + better fonts + snappy browser UI + slow hardware accelerated sites(ie9 experiments and stuff) = better than staying @ 3.6

[Lee G. Veteran]

Beta 8 font rendering looks like crap agreed, if Mozilla don't change it then 3.6 will stay on as my browser. Then again is there any performance gain to be won/lost with turning the feature off?

I think it's better if you turn off hardware acceleration. I prefer the default font rendering:

[bogas04]

I think it's better if you turn off hardware acceleration. I prefer the default font rendering:

HAed fonts (just for comparison sake)

[chrisdoland]

The font rendering with Hardware Acceleration is the best reason to use FF. I have a 720p monitor that looks great with FF compared to other browsers. After finding a bug in Beta 8 & switching to Opera 11, I have returned to the gecko fold with Minefield & the freakin awesome "Stratiform" extension! I really wonder what monitor you font disturbed members are using. Maybe it's your graphics? Glaucoma? This is the best, sharpest, crisp looking fonts that are only rivaled by IE9. I found it hard to use Opera 11 after Ff. Though with Opera 11, Ff could take a look at how they get that speed, smoothest scrolling, & fast launch. Maybe Ff needs to cache itself in memory like IE9.

[Unknown_97784568745]

[tuckeratlarge]

I turned off the hardware acceleration in beta 8 and it's now very nice and readable.

I have also noticed on sites such as PC mag, Lifehacker or Gizmodo, where in Firefox 3.6, Chrome 9 or IE9 the fonts were blurry and unreadable forcing me to "Ctrl+" a couple of times to make them readable - which buggers the images somewhat - Beta 8 with hardware acceleration off displays them beautifully thus allowing me to "Ctrl0" back to the site intended size. Nice.

I haven't noticed any increase in speed over 3.6 though. I don't care about the startup times, or memory usage, I'm more interested in the page rendering and tab opening. They all seem the same to me

@dotnetnightmare I fail to see what the monitor has to do with this problem when other browsers render the fonts nice and sharp.

[Auroka]

I've been using beta 8 for awhile now and its awesome. :)

I took everyone's advice and turned off hardware acceleration and now everything is way more readable.

Stupid question... how are people using Greasemonkey and Stylish on b8? "This add-on has not been updated to work with your version of Firefox."... :/

[Brandon H Supervisor]

get the add-on compatibility reporter

[Auroka]

Does this happen to anyone else?

I pinned Gmail as an app tab and every time I restart Firefox it always "takes to long to load."

Its fine once I refresh the page, but its really annoying...

I hardly have any add-ons, and I disabled the ones I was using and it still happens.

[The_Decryptor Veteran]

A slight change to how text is rendered has landed in the latest nightly, at the moment it's just for Direct3D 9 users (i.e. Windows XP or people with D2D disabled), but the change now means that text should retain sub-pixel anti-aliasing everywhere (Currently it depends on the opacity of the page layer it was drawn into). The change should also be making it's way to OS X soon enough, with Direct3D 10/DirectWrite taking a bit longer.

I turned off the hardware acceleration in beta 8 and it's now very nice and readable.

...

A nicer solution is actually just to disable Direct2D (about:config > direct2d.disabled > true), you'll fall back to software rendering for the majority of content, but page display will still be hardware accelerated.

Edit: Generally you'll want to keep Direct2D/DirectWrite enabled though, speed increases are a plus and DirectWrite is just a better text rendering API than GDI is, see this example.

[Steven P. Administrators]

I have direct2d.disabled set to true and I find that the fonts are way easier to read (less blurred) I also disabled Hardware Acceleration.

[The_Decryptor Veteran]

You should leave hardware acceleration enabled, it'll speed up page rendering a fair bit (as well as <video> playback)

[Steven P. Administrators]

You should leave hardware acceleration enabled, it'll speed up page rendering a fair bit (as well as <video> playback)

Oh alright then :p

[tuckeratlarge]

A nicer solution is actually just to disable Direct2D (about:config > direct2d.disabled > true), you'll fall back to software rendering for the majority of content, but page display will still be hardware accelerated.

Trying that now, fonts look ok

[Xtreme $niper]

Well at least they're giving people the option to turn off hardware acceleration. I have a feeling I'll need to flip that switch to avoid unnecessary battery drain if FF decides to require my dedicated GPU as opposed to the integrated.

I'm still holding off on trying the betas though because I don't want to deal with messing up my 3.6 profile or managing separate profiles just to try a browser...

[CPJames19]

HAed fonts (just for comparison sake)

That bottom screenshot looks really cool. Is it a skin? and what are those 3 buttons neat the minimize button on top right of your screen?

[max2]

Well at least they're giving people the option to turn off hardware acceleration. I have a feeling I'll need to flip that switch to avoid unnecessary battery drain if FF decides to require my dedicated GPU as opposed to the integrated.

I'm still holding off on trying the betas though because I don't want to deal with messing up my 3.6 profile or managing separate profiles just to try a browser...

Why not use the portable version of Firefox 4 Beta then so you don't have to! http://portableapps.com/apps/internet/firefox_portable/test

That or a second pc but I highly doubt everyone here has that. You can even try the latest nightly minefield build as well if you really want.

[ShMaunder]

Got a error messagebox on it earlier telling me the tab animation had timed out with an actual listed bug number for it.

Except for the odd copy & paste issue i get when using 4, its a brilliant browser.

Though i can't see the point in the mini menu on Windows - might as well just press 'Alt' ;)

[dnast]

Wow, they're really pushing Beta 9 out the door. There are only 7 blockers left.

https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/buglist.cgi?quicksearch=blocking2.0%3Abeta9%2B

[Chasethebase Veteran]

If you find the font rendering not to your liking, open up the Start menu (Vista/7 only, XP has a Powertoy i think they're called) and type 'ClearType,' it should find the setting tweaker and you can adjust the appearance accordingly.

[max2]

Wow, they're really pushing Beta 9 out the door. There are only 7 blockers left.

https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/buglist.cgi?quicksearch=blocking2.0%3Abeta9%2B

:D

Not to quick now Mozilla!

[bogas04]

That bottom screenshot looks really cool. Is it a skin? and what are those 3 buttons neat the minimize button on top right of your screen?

Its a Stylish code i took form various places :p thanks to SoapHamHock and Heart-ripper majorly

Created userstyle out of it : http://userstyles.org/styles/42286

[Malisk]

Wow, they're really pushing Beta 9 out the door. There are only 7 blockers left.

https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/buglist.cgi?quicksearch=blocking2.0%3Abeta9%2B

Yes, it's going to be a scheduled release unlike beta 8. So they're pushing out the bugs if they don't have time to fix them. It's not an indication of them fixing bugs like mad. ;) They're just postponing those to the next beta and moving them out of the beta 9 timeframe. Beta 9 will be out by mid-january unless something unexpected happens.