Back to the front of the pack: Ars reviews Firefox 4 | Hacker News Reader

Back to the front of the pack: Ars reviews Firefox 4

arstechnica.com

73 pointsbrianwillis47 comments

I love the app tab concept. Just wish the favicon would update and tell me when new mail has arrived.

If you are using Gmail that is supported through a labs feature: http://gmailblog.blogspot.com/2011/01/new-in-labs-unread-mes...

thanks!

Chrome has had that for over a year (nearly two years?) now.

You mean the pinned tab concept? I have no idea who started it but I used to have an extension on Firefox for that even before Chrome existed. Big Chrome fan here though.

Whenever somebody says that they love something about firefox 4 are you going to reply like that?

Congrats on chrome, but berfore they did it there already was tab mix plus and faviconize extensions which had this concept.

Yeah, everybody copies the good stuff, that's what good about competition. Don't be mean and ironic with useless information on other people's positive comments.

Both are great software, there is no need to fight over and be always looking for the fight

It wasn't meant like that. The comment acted as if it was something new, it's not that hard to read it that way. "I hope this takes off" definitely makes it sound as if it's a brand new feature just coming out or something.

It wasn't meant even half as maliciously as you read into it.

Firefox will highlight the tab if the title changes, which might work for you.

This update is really very nice. I prefer Chrome over Firefox, but I can't live without Firebug. I know Chrome developer tools are nice and workable but Firebug just seems better to me somehow, may just be familiarity.

I've stuck it out with Firefox for a long time so I could continue using my beloved Firebug, but with this new version instead of feeling tethered to an unwieldy behemoth I feel happy in my browser.

Congrats to the Firefox team.

I had to wait until the end of the article to see that FF4 is still one monolithic process. Everything else aside, that means I still have to restart it occasionally to get memory back. And the tab-of-death problem remains.

They do have Flash isolated, which has solved my main "tab of death" issue. However, I'm probably not a good example here, because I haven't had FF crash in months, at least. I honestly can't remember when it did last crash, except that the only ones I can think of involved Flash.

I've been really happy with Chrome after using Firefox for a long time. I couldn't bear one more Adobe Flash Plugin crash. Has any Chrome user here switched over to Firefox 4 and been pleased with it?

Tried switching back this morning. I wanted to like it, I really did. But compared to Chrome, Firefox still feels heavy, cluttered, and it doesn't quite mesh with how I feel a browser should work.

I realise that these are amorphous and inarticulate reasons for choosing one browser over another, but it's all I've got.

The only thing preventing me from leaving FF to move to Chrome is TabMixPlus (especially multi-layered tabs), considering I regularly have 20-30+ tabs open simultaneously. Scrolling through tabs on Chrome is a very painful experience, and as such, my Chrome experience is limited to occasional moments when FF feels too clunky and needs to be restarted.

If there is a Chrome extension that allows this, please let me know, because I've been unable to find one.

I don`t know if this will help, but I am using extension Too Many Tabs for Chrome. Not that it is as awesome as TabMixPlus for FF, but it helps. And there are other similar extensions. I haven`t tried all of them, but here is the link: https://chrome.google.com/extensions/search?q=Tab+mix+Plus

Yes. Running OS X, Firefox is more responsive when opening and switching to new tabs. Maybe the act of creating a new process for each tab slows Chrome down? For example, if I open a new tab in Chrome while I have many already open and then attempt to scroll, the scrolling will lag by a second. I almost never have any lag with Firefox except when first starting the program. Even with an SSD Firefox is more responsive.

Yes, because of pentadactyl.

Yes. I started using the beta a few months ago, and steadily used Chrome less and less. Now, not at all.

If you'd have read the article to the end you would have seen that Firefox now isolates browser plugins so they don't take down the browser with them.

With the addition of the FlashBlock plugin (http://flashblock.mozdev.org/) the chance of those crashes happening drops significantly.

This can be done without a plugin in Chrome. Simply go to about:flags and enable the Click to Play plugins option. This enables an extra option in the prefs under Content Settings IIRC, that allows you to force any, all, or specific plugins to behave this way. Godsend.

This has been true since 3.6 unless you're on mac.

Firefox 4 has a clear lead over all the other browsers in HTML5 support and javascript performance. It is the best release on the market for HTML5 gaming.

I am fairly sure that is not true, e.g. http://arewefastyet.com/ does not show a clear lead over others, and that is by firefox devs themselves.

Notwithstanding real usage, sensible benchmarking, concrete experience etc.. I'm just arguing it is not _clear_.

More-or-less. I test drove Chrome for about a month but I cannot live without NoScript support. Besides that I find the browsers to be about equal for what I use them for.

This was about 6 months ago.

note: I did try NotScripts for Chrome, but it was too limited.

On ubuntu, yes. On windows, no. Chrome opens tabs kinda slow on ubuntu for some reason.

I'm still debating on whether to use Firefox 4. Both Safari and Chrome seem to exhibit "lock ups" while opening a few tabs or while loading content. Maybe others have experience the same thing?

Yes, do you use OS X? I haven't found the issue to be as pronounced in the Windows versions.

Yes mostly on OS X but maybe also on Linux.

Not being snarky, but instead of debating, why don't you try (or "force yourself") to use FF4 for a full day or two before making a decision?

When I say debating I mean picking the least annoying one after having used all of them at their current version for a few days.

I am surprised to see that a restart of the browser is still required to enable / disable extensions and themes in the new FireFox 4.

Is this the case with Chrome as well?

Firefox has also other type of extensions. Jetpack extensions ( https://jetpack.mozillalabs.com/ ) which don't require restarts. And there are also "mini themes", called Personas ( http://www.getpersonas.com/en-US/ ) which don't require restarts.

Not in anything I've seen, about 50 different extensions including context menus, blockers, all sorts I'd call major.

Firefox 4 is the first release to support restartless add-ons: https://developer.mozilla.org/en/Extensions/Bootstrapped_ext...

Add-ons written in the traditional way will still need a restart, until the authors adapt them to the new bootstrap API. Here are some add-ons that are restartless already:

https://addons.mozilla.org/firefox/tag/restartless

Hmm, "New window" (or option N) doesn't work if the current focus is on a window on my second monitor. Very annoying since that's my browsing screen.

That sounds similar to my pet bug: https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=632749

Just tried that here and I can’t replicate (10.6.6).

It's probably only a windows(maybe linux) bug as I cannot replicate it here either. (OS X)

I'm on 10.6.7, perhaps that's why. It is consistent on two Mac Pro's I tried with dual screens, so it should be easy to replicate.

All of the popup panels for menu items are displayed erratically with the contents appearing and disappearing as I move over them with the mouse. This only happens on a second monitor under Windows Vista.

I am seeing many things copied from Chrome. Reading the article top to bottom:

-Tabs above the address bar

-1 button for stop/refresh

-single star button for bookmarks

-transient status bar

-manage extensions in a tab

-pinning tabs

Tab groups, awesome bar, sync, and the privacy features do look awesome though. Will try them out for a while.

The photo at the start of the article is of a Red Panda, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_panda, not a fox (of any kind).

that is supposed to be the meaning of "firefox" http://www.mozilla.org/projects/firefox/firefox-name-faq.htm...

I stand corrected. I guess Fire Panda does not have the same ring to it.

It's still the slowest.. Proper tests here http://uk.gizmodo.com/5784454/browser-speed-tests-firefox-4-...

From what I saw in the arstech article, the graphics are somewhere between bulkly ie8, and super clean Opera. Has any FF user used another browser properly and gone back for something other than extensions? It really does seem to suck from what I see. And now Opera and Safari have a lot of good extensions, FF should be dying out, but it probably won't.

Yey I got downvoted for a link to a test, and a possibly-too-modern but realistic view.

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