Recommended Posts

I'm glad they put "Open Link in a New Tab" above "Open Link in a New Window". I'm also glad that Direct2D font rendering is disabled by default. It's still not as fast as Chrome but it's definitely faster than the beta versions I tried.

Is it just me, or are the fonts abysmal in FF 4? Neowin looks horrid compared to the same page rendered in FF 3.6 or Chrome.

EDIT: It appears to be an issue. Not quite sure that I want to disable hardware acceleration to fix this.

Yeah it's just horrible, makes Fx 4 completely unusable for me.

I Shall be sticking with FF3.6 if this RC1 is how it's going to be. Many annoyances - chief of which, font rendering aside, I end up having the layout the same as FF3.6 because I want the bookmarks toolbar visible but if I do the bookmarks button - which I have placed next to the home button - gets moved to the far right of the toolbar, I don't want that. I wouldn't have put it next to the home button otherwise. Also it refuses to focus on input boxes on google.co.uk no matter what extension or about:config settings I use.

But mainly the font rendering.

This ain't good, adblock + FF4 not fixed either,

Unfortunately, the issue is most certainly in Firefox and I can do little about it other than creating a clean bug report. https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=631494 has been fixed so it might be the same problem as https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=639186 or maybe it's a new one. It looks like garbage collection in Firefox 4 is still making trouble..

Edited by Udedenkz

I'm glad they put "Open Link in a New Tab" above "Open Link in a New Window". I'm also glad that Direct2D font rendering is disabled by default. It's still not as fast as Chrome but it's definitely faster than the beta versions I tried.

DirectWrite isn't disabled by default, unless there's an issue with drivers or such causing Firefox to blacklist your hardware.

As for DirectWrite and Direct2D, eventually every browser will be using it, the benefits far outweigh personal opinions against it.

How do you install firefox 4 rc in ubuntu? With "sudo apt-get install firefox-4.0", what I got is minefield. I don't know how to handle the file provided by the main website (what do I need to do after downloading it?). I use windows, but I sometimes use ubuntu for school works.

Wow just had to remove a bunch of extension config settings from 4.0 RC1, apparently uninstalling *some* add-ons doesn't remove the entries in about:config.

One of them was Google Toolbar, which I was trying out for the inline page translations.

And Yoono :/

Is it just me, or are the fonts abysmal in FF 4? Neowin looks horrid compared to the same page rendered in FF 3.6 or Chrome.

EDIT: It appears to be an issue. Not quite sure that I want to disable hardware acceleration to fix this.

On my Win XP work machine the fonts look fine; just as they were in FF 3.6. But on my Win 7 machine they look horrible, like the font smoothing went crazy. How do I disable the hardware acceleration to fix this?

Firefox 4

* RC is now the Firefox 4 Desktop build that has the most users (yay!)

* early this week we hope to be able to make a go/no-go call based on stability and feedback

So we should know by wednesday the release date of FF4?

So long as the RC is stable, I don't care how long before they release it. It's the same as RC anyways.

This topic is now closed to further replies.
  • Recently Browsing   0 members

    • No registered users viewing this page.
  • Posts

    • Does anyone here know if these updates are integrated into the UUP dump isos?
    • Motrix Next 3.9.4 by Razvan Serea Motrix Next is a modern, open-source cross-platform download manager built as the official next-generation successor to the original Motrix project. It has been completely rewritten using Tauri 2, Vue 3, TypeScript, and Rust, while still relying on the powerful Aria2 download engine for high-speed multi-protocol transfers. The app supports HTTP, HTTPS, FTP, BitTorrent, ED2K and magnet links, offering advanced features like multi-connection acceleration, task scheduling, bandwidth control, and batch download management. With a significantly reduced install size (around 20MB), it focuses on being lightweight, fast, and resource-efficient compared to traditional Electron-based download tools. Designed for Windows, macOS, and Linux, Motrix Next delivers a clean, modern UI inspired by Material Design 3 principles, with smooth animations and a minimal workflow. It improves usability through better download organization, system tray integration, and enhanced torrent handling including selective file downloads and tracker management. Motrix Next features: Multi-protocol downloads — HTTP, FTP, BitTorrent, Magnet, .torrent, ED2K, and Metalink tasks BitTorrent — Selective file download, DHT, peer exchange, encryption controls, metadata caching, GeoIP peer flags, and tracker probing Browser extension integration — Embedded Extension API with independent authentication, download confirmation, smart auto-submit, filename hints, referer/cookie forwarding, and real-time controls (Chrome Web Store · Edge Add-ons) Safe filename handling — Content-Disposition, RFC 2047, non-UTF-8, percent-encoded, and extensionless URL resolution with path traversal sanitization Download organization — Favorite and recent folders, optional file-type categorization, stale-record cleanup, and completed history backed by SQLite Concurrent downloads — Independent controls for active tasks, HTTP connections per server, segments per file, and BT peer limits Speed control — Global and per-task upload/download limits with day-of-week and time-of-day scheduling System integration — Tray operation, optional tray speed display, macOS Dock badge/progress, protocol handlers for magnet://, thunder://, and motrixnext:// Lightweight mode — Destroys the WebView on minimize-to-tray while Rust keeps the engine, task monitor, notifications, history, and extension routing alive Notifications and power options — Native task start/complete/failure notifications, keep-awake during downloads, and optional shutdown after completion Network controls — Scoped proxy support for downloads, app updates, and tracker updates, plus system proxy detection Auto-update channels — Stable, Beta, and Latest Across Channels policies with separate download and install phases Diagnostics — Structured logs, exportable diagnostic ZIPs, database integrity checks, automatic DB rebuild, and Linux GPU rendering fallback Personalization — Light/dark/system theme, 10 color schemes, 26 languages, and first-launch system language detection Motrix Next 3.9.4 changelog: Motrix Next 3.9.4 promotes the 3.9.4 beta cycle to stable. This release refreshes bundled engine binaries, improves task detail readability and copy actions, expands link handling for magnet and ED2K workflows, polishes responsive navigation and text wrapping, updates browser extension documentation, and refines network preference controls. New Features Task Detail copy actions — Added copyable values for task metadata and reusable render functions for long text fields. Magnet and ED2K lifecycle support — Added task lifecycle handling for magnet and ED2K links. History cleanup for deleted tasks — Deleted tasks can now remove matching history records. User-Agent management — Added user-agent management and improved related network preference controls. Browser extension documentation — Added the Firefox Add-ons link for the Motrix Next extension. Improvements Engine binaries — Updated bundled binaries for supported architectures. Task Detail readability — Long task names, URLs, tracker values, and copyable metadata now render more clearly. Deletion messaging — Refined localized task deletion text for clarity and consistency. Text wrapping — Improved URI input wrapping and task name multiline display. Navigation layout — Improved sub-navigation responsiveness. Disk allocation default — Changed the default file allocation method to trunc. Proxy controls — Improved proxy button styling in network preferences. Download: Motrix Next 64-bit | ARM64 | macOS ~20.0 MB (Open Source) Links: Website | macOS / Linux | Screenshot Get alerted to all of our Software updates on Twitter at @NeowinSoftware
    • NVIDIA officially supports Ubuntu, as linked above with the GeForce NOW Hands on I did in collaboration with Paul Hill.
    • TO be clear I am not running linux today, however I keep thinking about it. And I want to make sure there are minimal obstacles if I decide to make that switch in the coming months.
    • Yes, I actually glossed over the Linux part from the OP. You could always go for a 9070 XT and if you really want to play Ray Traced games in the future, GeForce Now is pretty damn good on Linux https://www.neowin.net/news/nvidias-native-geforce-now-app-for-linux-bridges-the-gaming-gap-hands-on/
  • Recent Achievements

    • Proficient
      Eric Biran went up a rank
      Proficient
    • Dedicated
      Conjor earned a badge
      Dedicated
    • Week One Done
      Windows Guy earned a badge
      Week One Done
    • Dedicated
      Mark Spruce earned a badge
      Dedicated
    • Collaborator
      conkir earned a badge
      Collaborator
  • Popular Contributors

    1. 1
      +primortal
      479
    2. 2
      PsYcHoKiLLa
      252
    3. 3
      Steven P.
      72
    4. 4
      +Edouard
      69
    5. 5
      Skyfrog
      67
  • Tell a friend

    Love Neowin? Tell a friend!