Meet Firefox 4.0.1

[bogas04]

I was just reading some articles about declining market share of firefox , to me it seems , IE and Chrome , both might together just ruin firefox o.O

[The_Decryptor Veteran]

Firefox isn't going anywhere, market share might go up and down but we're not at the point where we need just 1 or 2 browsers.

Edit: And having just IE and Chrome would slow down progress again since it'd stall specs.

[BetaAddict]

Firefox isn't going anywhere, market share might go up and down but we're not at the point where we need just 1 or 2 browsers.

Edit: And having just IE and Chrome would slow down progress again since it'd stall specs.

For the foreseeable future, there will be five browser: IE, Chrome, FF, Opera, and Safari. Should keep the competition and innovation healthy, and really can't think of any other major players that would want to invest in building a new browser. Only Facebook has a potential reason and the money to do so, but would be a waste of resources for them.

IE (excluding IE9) and Chrome are basically swapping marketshare, while the other three are have been pretty stead over the past year. Should get interesting from this month forward after IE9 and FF4 releases to see how users decide which browser is best for them.

[revanmj]

Awesome find , also one must consider that Firefox 4 compared to Firefox 3.6 is AGGEESSS AHEEADD and the time taken seems less to me sometimes , its just that they failed to deliver products at the time they promised (or rather targeted in wiki notes and we took it as promise) , that's what made us feel they are slow , if they had said Firefox 4 would come next year Q1 , no one would have said development is slow

I feel Mozilla development process is slow because when they release new features in FF, they are usually old, and other browsers already had them for a while (like decent UI on Windows, addon manager as a tab, bookmarks sync, etc.). The only thing Mozilla can do quickly? Mockups. Unfortunately, making those pictures real takes them forever ...

[vajlent]

Anybody else who can't install AdBlock Plus (1.3.3) ?

The download is complete but then nothing happens...

[Karl-Johan]

Anybody else who can't install AdBlock Plus (1.3.3) ?

The download is complete but then nothing happens...

Install latest beta from here: https://adblockplus.org/devbuilds/adblockplus/

[BetaAddict]

Install latest beta from here: https://adblockplus.org/devbuilds/adblockplus/

I managed to get the 1.3.3 installed without any issue yesterday, but I didn't realize that there are newer builds released over the past few weeks.

[+Steve B Subscriber²]

Did Mozilla change the font or font effects with FF4? I've installed a few previous betas, now I'm using FF4b12. There is something different about the font style or effect. It either reminds me of looking at text in Safari or looking at text on an old flat screen crt trinitron monitor. Its hard for me to explain but, something is different about it. Any input?

[The_Decryptor Veteran]

Firefox 4 uses DirectWrite instead of GDI, so text looks different (but the same as other DirectWrite apps like the XPS viewer or IE9)

Edit: If you don't like it, you can disable DirectWrite and Direct2D in about:config (search for "direct2d")

[vajlent]

Install latest beta from here: https://adblockplus.org/devbuilds/adblockplus/

Doesn't work either!?!

Other add-ons do...

[Sacha]

Can't bring myself to use Firefox 4 simply because of the enormous start-up time. I sometimes wonder if it'll load at all and then pop it appears. Using beta 12.

In comparison, Chrome 10 is up in under a second from cold boot.

I have a 3GHz Core2Duo laptop with 4GB of RAM and Firefox 4 is taking 7 seconds to be usable from a warm (but not recent) boot and much longer for a cold boot. A warm and recent boot is pretty much instant, like all apps in Windows 7 though.

[+Steve B Subscriber²]

Firefox 4 uses DirectWrite instead of GDI, so text looks different (but the same as other DirectWrite apps like the XPS viewer or IE9)

Edit: If you don't like it, you can disable DirectWrite and Direct2D in about:config (search for "direct2d")

I did that and two listings came up the first one was "gfx.direct2d.disabled". I "toggled" or double clicked it and it bolded that line. I re-started FF and now its not nearly as bad on my eyes. The second listing was this "gfx.direct2d.force-enabled" I didn't touch that one. What is it though?

[grayscale]

Have you tried using a fresh profile? I tried to install it now both on nightly and beta12 and found no problems.

Edit: was talking about abp problem

[Yakuzing]

like the ability to manually add search engines, which is something I find essential for fast/convenient browsing.

http://kb.mozillazine.org/Search_Bar

http://support.mozilla.com/en-US/kb/search%20bar

http://lifehacker.com/#!196779/hack-attack-firefox-and-the-art-of-keyword-bookmarking

http://www.mozilla.org/docs/end-user/keywords.html

What more adding of search engines do you need?

Please consider what you say just a little bit more... Check your facts before you become an internet liar.

How funny does that last part sound hehe

[grayscale]

Can't bring myself to use Firefox 4 simply because of the enormous start-up time. I sometimes wonder if it'll load at all and then pop it appears. Using beta 12.

In comparison, Chrome 10 is up in under a second from cold boot.

I have a 3GHz Core2Duo laptop with 4GB of RAM and Firefox 4 is taking 7 seconds to be usable from a warm (but not recent) boot and much longer for a cold boot. A warm and recent boot is pretty much instant, like all apps in Windows 7 though.

It takes me around that much time on warm boot as well but I don't find it annoying. Chrome (in my case) takes as much time as well when filled with webapps though. But I agree, they need to find a way to trim down the warm boot time but I don't think it should be a priority.

[The_Decryptor Veteran]

I did that and two listings came up the first one was "gfx.direct2d.disabled". I "toggled" or double clicked it and it bolded that line. I re-started FF and now its not nearly as bad on my eyes. The second listing was this "gfx.direct2d.force-enabled" I didn't touch that one. What is it though?

DirectWrite, or the options?

DirectWrite is a new hardware accelerated text rendering API designed to replace GDI. GDI at it's core is designed for CRT screens, and is incapable of taking advantage of LCD screens (And can't be made to do so without breaking programs). One side effect is that since the glyphs are no longer forced to take up a whole pixel, some people say it's "blurry" (Which is one of the complaints thrown at Quartz on OS X, which doesn't have the GDI limitations)

DirectWrite is linked to Direct2D, you can mix them but it's so buggy and slow that you don't want to do that (DirectWrite and no Direct2D results in black pixels everywhere, Direct2D with no DirectWrite slows down the browser terribly)

As for the options, "gfx.direct2d.disabled" is self explanatory, and "gfx.direct2d.force-enabled" is there for forcing Direct2D to be enabled when it would otherwise be disabled (due to old drivers, blocked hardware, etc.)

[+Steve B Subscriber²]

DirectWrite, or the options?

DirectWrite is a new hardware accelerated text rendering API designed to replace GDI. GDI at it's core is designed for CRT screens, and is incapable of taking advantage of LCD screens (And can't be made to do so without breaking programs). One side effect is that since the glyphs are no longer forced to take up a whole pixel, some people say it's "blurry" (Which is one of the complaints thrown at Quartz on OS X, which doesn't have the GDI limitations)

DirectWrite is linked to Direct2D, you can mix them but it's so buggy and slow that you don't want to do that (DirectWrite and no Direct2D results in black pixels everywhere, Direct2D with no DirectWrite slows down the browser terribly)

As for the options, "gfx.direct2d.disabled" is self explanatory, and "gfx.direct2d.force-enabled" is there for forcing Direct2D to be enabled when it would otherwise be disabled (due to old drivers, blocked hardware, etc.)

Thanks for your help. I have a LCD and with that change in FF4. It was hard to read. I could read it but, it strained my eyes and was uncomfortable to look at. Toggling the first option changed it back. Thank you. Its a lot easier on my eyes now. Its funny because, I have IE9 installed as well and I didn't notice they were using it too until you said so. I notice it now but, it wasn't nearly as bad as it was on FF4.

[xoperax]

Does anyone know how to keep Firefox 4 bookmark button keeps open-window or drop list after middle-clicking to open a bookmark site in the background? It's so annoyance to reclick the bookmark button if you want to open may background tab in your bookmark.

[xankazo]

Apparently RC builds should start within the next day or so, Mozilla are trying to get Microsoft to fix Hotmail within the next day so RC builds won't contain the workaround for their bug.

nice.

[Kyang]

Does anyone know how to keep Firefox 4 bookmark button keeps open-window or drop list after middle-clicking to open a bookmark site in the background? It's so annoyance to reclick the bookmark button if you want to open may background tab in your bookmark.

I use Stay open menu:

https://addons.mozilla.org/en-us/firefox/addon/stay-open-menu/

[Guest]

canweship changed from almost to virtually lol i guess it's coming really soon!

[LittleNeutrino Veteran]

So I am thinking starting with the RC i am going to start running this full time.

[grayscale]

canweship changed from almost to virtually lol i guess it's coming really soon!

It's "very close" now :D

[Pikey]

Firefox 4 uses DirectWrite instead of GDI, so text looks different (but the same as other DirectWrite apps like the XPS viewer or IE9)

Edit: If you don't like it, you can disable DirectWrite and Direct2D in about:config (search for "direct2d")

I wonder if turning of 'Use Hardware Acceleration When Available' in the Options > Advanced tab does the same thing .. or not?

I'm sure I read something about this a couple of weeks ago .. can't remember where now ..

Anybody know for sure?

[grayscale]

Anybody else experiencing higher memory usage on the latest nightly? (higher than on previous updates)