Firefox 4 Beta 1 released!

[marulez]

Firefox 4 Beta 1 is now ready to download and test! This first version gives an early look at what?s planned for Firefox 4. Stay tuned, because there is more to come and we plan to release new beta versions every two to three weeks. Your feedback is essential to help shape the product which is why we?re launching now to hear from you early in our development process.

Firefox 4 Beta 1 includes dozens of major features and improvements ? by testing them early we?ll be able to respond to your feedback for future versions of Firefox. Once you download Firefox 4 Beta 1, you?re part of our beta program and will receive regular updates as more features launch.

If you are using a Windows PC, the most noticeable new feature will be the look of the browser. We moved the tabs to the top to make it easier to focus on the web content and easier to control the tools in your Web browser. Also, if you have Windows 7 or Windows Vista the Menu bar was replaced with a single Firefox button so you can get to the most used options with just one click. These changes will be coming soon for Mac and Linux.

There is a lot more to this beta than a facelift on Windows, including:

• New Add-Ons Manager: gives you more space to manage your Add-Ons, Themes and Plugins. Customizing your browser has never been easier!
• HD Video: Watch hardware-accelerated, super-smooth, HD-quality HTML5 video on YouTube using the new WebM format.
• Privacy improvements: Mozilla always puts privacy first, and this latest beta fixes flaws in some Web standards that could expose your browser history.
• Crash Protection: Experience uninterrupted browsing (now available on all platforms) ? when a plugin crashes or freezes, you can resume browsing by simply refreshing the page.
• Performance: We know that performance is important. In this version, we focused on improving responsiveness at start-up and during page loads. This is just the beginning for performance improvements in Firefox 4.

Web developers will be interested in some of the changes we?ve made under the hood:

• HTML5 Parser: Run the best Web apps of today and tomorrow ? if a user?s browser doesn?t support HTML5, they still won?t miss out on your content.
• WebSockets: Build real-time, online interactions like gaming and chatting.
• IndexedDB: Use structured storage in your Web applications to speed them up or provide offline support.
• Web Console: Peek into dynamic websites with this experimental ?Heads Up Display? play? analysis tool.
• Simpler Add-On Development: Authors can create Add-Ons that don?t require a restart to install, develop their Add-Ons more quickly using the new powerful Jetpack SDK, and safely connect to existing libraries using js-ctypes.
• For a full list of Web technologies supported by Firefox check out our ?big chart o? features.?

Source

Download Firefox 4 Beta 1

[bruNo_]

w00t :D

[Ryster]

Well, not a great start so far. Installed it on my Windows 7 machine, granted its running the SP1 beta, but still.... not good.

[The_Observer]

was going to install this, but i cant run a bunch of my addons so i think ill wait awhile! but it is lookin good!

Well, not a great start so far. Installed it on my Windows 7 machine, granted its running the SP1 beta, but still.... not good.

my flatmate had the same issue, he remove the firefox folder in the %appdata% folder and that fixed it up! Must be something the settings on the old version of firefox...

[Lee G. Veteran]

I've just updated. It looks good and is stable for me.

Well, not a great start so far. Installed it on my Windows 7 machine, granted its running the SP1 beta, but still.... not good.

It's probably like that because you have a custom theme set in Firefox 3.6. When I first installed a Minefield the layout was screwed up because I had a custom theme set in Firefox 3.6. I just changed the theme to the default theme and Minefield was fine afterwards.

[CactuzJak]

looks better, but horribly slow once it opens for a good 5-10 seconds

[ObiWanToby]

Yay. Firefox 4 is quite beautiful.

[Pupik]

So from 3.6.6 we're jumping straight to 4.0, or there's still enough time for 3.6.7 (or even 3.7) until the inal release?

[Ryster]

I've just updated. It looks good and is stable for me.

It's probably like that because you have a custom theme set in Firefox 3.6. When I first installed a Minefield the layout was screwed up because I had a custom theme set in Firefox 3.6. I just changed the theme to the default theme and Minefield was fine afterwards.

You're right, I removed all my themes and reverted to the default theme and it looks ok now.

But that doesn't make it right... shouldn't Firefox check the compatibility of your addons when you upgrade and disable those that are not compatible?

[ObiWanToby]

You're right, I removed all my themes and reverted to the default theme and it looks ok now.

But that doesn't make it right... shouldn't Firefox check the compatibility of your addons when you upgrade and disable those that are not compatible?

Submit a bug.

[Brandon H Supervisor]

You're right, I removed all my themes and reverted to the default theme and it looks ok now.

But that doesn't make it right... shouldn't Firefox check the compatibility of your addons when you upgrade and disable those that are not compatible?

not if you had compatibility check turned off

[M4nB3arP1g]

Two questions:

1) How do you turn off add-on compatibility check in this version?

2) How do you disable the aero peak thing for every tab?

[Ryster]

not if you had compatibility check turned off

Yes, because I'd be complaing about it not checking compatibility if I had turned compatibility checking off.... :blink:

Two questions:

1) How do you turn off add-on compatibility check off in this version?

2) How do you disable the aero peak thing for every tab?

1. No idea. Never done it.

2. Thats a feature of Windows 7 that Firefox is supporting, just as IE8 and Chrome do. I like it personally. Lets me jump to the tab I need quickly and easily just by hovering over the browser icon in the taskbar.

[torrentthief]

does adblock plus and flashgot 1.2.1.27 work with 4.0 Beta 1? Does the 64bit version have crash reporter working yet?

according to the changelog there seems to be alot of technologies disabled by default, lets hope they are stable and enabled when beta 2 is out :)

[M4nB3arP1g]

Yes, because I'd be complaing about it not checking compatibility if I had turned compatibility checking off.... :blink:

1. No idea. Never done it.

2. Thats a feature of Windows 7 that Firefox is supporting, just as IE8 and Chrome do. I like it personally. Lets me jump to the tab I need quickly and easily just by hovering over the browser icon in the taskbar.

1) I am sure its something you have to enter in about:config but I don't know what.

2) Ya the 3.5 beta I think had that in testing but they disabled it in final I don't like it myself but I am sure I read you could disable it.

[SQ1]

1) I am sure its something you have to enter in about:config but I don't know what.

2) Ya the 3.5 beta I think had that in testing but they disabled it in final I don't like it myself but I am sure I read you could disable it.

Sure!

1) add new boolean 'extensions.checkCompatibility.4.0b' and set to false

2) change 'browser.taskbar.previews.enable' to false

[marulez]

does adblock plus and flashgot 1.2.1.27 work with 4.0 Beta 1?

according to the changelog there seems to be alot of technologies disabled by default, lets hope they are stable and enabled when beta 2 is out :)

Don't know about Flashgot but adblock plus and noscript are working good.

Don't know if you guys are experiencing this issue or not. But if you search something in google, and try to

click on 'More' hyperlink that appears on left side of google result, for me it doesn't display more options.

Is it working for you guys?

[Calum Veteran]

Hmmm. I don't think there's enough spacing between certain UI elements, especially the orange Firefox button and tab bar (when tabs are on top).

Also, what continues to annoy me is that there is no way to hide the tab bar without using CSS :( I don't need the tab bar - it's ugly and there are excellent keyboard shortcuts which can be used to bring up new tabs, close tabs or switch between tabs.

[M4nB3arP1g]

Sure!

1) add new boolean 'extensions.checkCompatibility.4.0b' and set to false

2) change 'browser.taskbar.previews.enable' to false

Thanks that did it. (Y)

[Hot]

Considering how damned slow 3.6.6 is, I am considering actually using this.

[torrentthief]

eww, 4.0b1 is horrible, the background colour of the tabs is grey which makes the black text hard to read, also when you load the browser with multiple tabs already loaded the all have the clock icon which makes it hard to find the tabs you want, you have to wait until they are loaded until you can see the icon for your favourite site :(

I normally have 40 ish tabs loaded which uses around 500mb ram, with 4.0 b1 its 860mb ram :(

Good news: the quick reply button on neowin is smooth, before it used to jerk with ff3.6.6 and older :)

[LukeEDay]

I am going to check this out ...

[Brandon H Supervisor]

eww, 4.0b1 is horrible, the background colour of the tabs is grey which makes the black text hard to read, also when you load the browser with multiple tabs already loaded the all have the clock icon which makes it hard to find the tabs you want, you have to wait until they are loaded until you can see the icon for your favourite site :(

remember this is the first beta

there will be a lot of changes by the time the final comes out around december

[Phenom II]

Ok cool so I got my addons working with this build, gonna give it a spin for a while, fingers crossed

[Julius Caro]

I got one of the nightlies in 64-bit for windows (minefield). Now when I want to get the actual b1, I can't find any win64 folder in the FTP. But 64-bit support is there for linux and mac. WHy is this?