Mozilla plots February Firefox 4 release

[yowanvista]

Firefox 4 is nearly ready for showtime, according to a recent post on Mozilla's mailing list.
"I'm seeing the same burst of excitement and activity that we've seen in the endgame of every release," the open source browser maker's platform engineering director Damon Sicore enthusiastically noted yesterday.
He said that Mozilla has around 160 hard blockers to knock down, before proceeding to Release Candidate stage of the next iteration of the outfit's browser.

"We have to reach Release Candidate status as quickly as possible, ideally finishing the hard blockers by the beginning of February and shipping final before the end of February," he said.

Mozilla plots February Firefox 4 release • The Register

 

[mr pc]

I know I'm going to sound naive - but is there a comprehensive list of improvements?
My biggest concern is it's leaching of memory (as with most FF users).
Not too fond of the Opera styling - I like variety between my browsers (FF, IE9, Opera, SRiron) - That's what makes me curious is the different stylings and operational offerings of each. I'm sure that's just the default skin.

 

[yowanvista]

I know I'm going to sound naive - but is there a comprehensive list of improvements?

• Uses JägerMonkey, a new, faster JavaScript engine
• Certain rendering operations are now hardware-accelerated using Direct3D 9 on Windows XP, Direct3D 10 on Windows Vista and 7, and OpenGL on Mac OS X
• Improved web typography using OpenType with support for ligatures, kerning and font variants
• HTML5 Forms API makes web based forms easier to implement and validate
• Support for the new proposed Audio Data API
• Direct2D Hardware Acceleration is now on by default for Windows 7 users
• Firefox button has a new look for Windows Vista and Windows 7 users
• Support for HSTS security protocol allowing sites to insist that they only be loaded over SSL
• Firefox Sync is now included by default
• A new feature gives users a visual overview of all open tabs, allowing them to be sorted and grouped
• An experimental API is included to provide more efficient Javascript animations
• Firefox now supports the HTML5 video "buffered" property
• Tabs are now on top by default on Windows, Mac OS X, and Linux
• You can turn any tab into an "App Tab" by right-clicking on it and selecting "Make into App Tab" from the context menu
• Web developers can animate content using CSS Transitions
• Responsiveness and scrolling improvements from the new retained layers layout system
• JavaScript speed improvements due to engine optimizations
• Changes to how XPCOM components are registered in order to help startup time and process separation
• You can search for and switch to already open tabs in the Smart Location Bar
• New Addons Manager and extension management API (UI will be changed before final release)
• Significant API improvements are available for JS-ctypes, a foreign function interface for extensions
• The stop and reload buttons have been merged into a single button on Windows, Mac OS X, and Linux
• The Bookmarks Toolbar has been replaced with a Bookmarks Button by default (you can switch it back if you'd like)
• Crash protection for Windows, Linux, and Mac OS X when there is a crash in the Adobe Flash, Apple Quicktime or Microsoft Silverlight plugins
• CSS Transitions are partially supported
• Full WebGL support is included but disabled by default at this time
• Core Animation rendering model for plugins on Mac OS X. Plugins which also support this rendering model can now draw faster and more efficiently
• Native support for the HD HTML5 WebM video format
• Web developers can update the URL field without reloading the page using HTML History APIs
• More responsive page rendering using lazy frame construction
• Link history lookup is done asynchronously to provide better responsiveness during pageload
• CSS :visited selectors have been changed to block websites from being able to check a user's browsing history
• New HTML5 parser
• Support for more HTML5 form controls
• Web authors can now get touch events from Firefox users on Windows 7 machines
• A new way of representing values in JavaScript that allows Firefox to execute heavy, numeric code (used for things like graphics and animations) more efficiently

My biggest concern is it's leaching of memory (as with most FF users).

Beta 9 will include some memory improvements, mine uses ~250Mb with 20 tabs

 

[mr pc]

Thanks a bunch for the list - rep for you

FF is my dedicated browser on my Win7/mac machines, my ubuntu is Chrome. I don't know if it was just me, my distro, or my machine, but FF didn't click well with it.

I am looking forward to this release- but hoping it won't require a bunch of readjustments to get it back to my preferred operation.

and I hope Open Font doesn't welcome some wonky font decisions by developers, site owners. Verdana, Arial work just fine.

 

[Win7User512]

I'm skeptical they'll make this deadline after all others were missed last quarter. But I will be excited to try the final version. Been using it since 2004.

 

[kodi]

Without the extensions updated by the various developers it will be useless to me.
That is the reason I am not using the Beta

 

[Lebon14]

^ Maybe they only wait for a final stable release. :]

As for my comment, I say : Don't rush things Mozilla. Take your time, we can wait even if you have to release 100 betas.

 

[GeneO]

Messes up my mouse. Hustle Firefox!

 

[Sardonicus]

Without the extensions updated by the various developers it will be useless to me.
That is the reason I am not using the Beta

That's my concern also. As long it can use Adblock Plus, at the least, I'm happy.

 

[mikedl]

Y'all would be quite surprised at the number of add-ons and extensions that work with the betas. If you have a few you cannot live without, go to their web sites and look for development or beta builds - you will be pleasantly surprised in most cases.

The new look of FF 4 is going to take a bit of adjusting for some but I really like it and still mod it through my userChrome.css file.

 

[lehnerus2000]

Don't take the warnings on "face value"

I been using the betas for a while now (since beta2).

Some add-ons are broken, but a lot of my add-ons (that have been reported as "incompatible") still work exactly the same as far as I can tell (i.e they still do what I installed them to do).

IMO:

• The new Firefox button is awful.
• Tabs-on-top is awful.
• The new add-ons bar is awful.

You can turn off the "improved" GUI changes (I recommend that you do).

I'll never understand why people think that having no control (over a program) is a good thing.
What's the point of having add-ons, if you can't control them when you need to?

It seems faster than FF 3.6, which is a plus.

 

[s31]

you dont have to use tabs on top, the add-on bar and the mode that shows the button

 

[Buddahfan]

I know I'm going to sound naive - but is there a comprehensive list of improvements?
My biggest concern is it's leaching of memory (as with most FF users).
Not too fond of the Opera styling - I like variety between my browsers (FF, IE9, Opera, SRiron) - That's what makes me curious is the different stylings and operational offerings of each. I'm sure that's just the default skin.

setup
---------
Windows 7 HP x64
RAM - 4 GB
Processor - Athlon 240

Firefox 4.0B8
Addons - 20
Internet Security Suite - Avast IS 5.1.889 latest one available

The memory usage is basically okay. However certain websites that are very heavy on Java scripts and Flash can eat up memory and sometimes even temporarily freeze Firefox if the scripts are questionable and need to scanned by AIS.

The problem is that sometimes Firefox memory is not released when webpages that use a lot of memory, i.e. heavy in Java script and Flash files, are closed.

To compensate for this I use SmartRAM which is part of the iObit Advanced Systems Care program. SmartRAM is memory resident with a small footprint. It can release sometimes over 500MB of memory in under 10 seconds.

If it SmartRAM fails to release enough memory for my satisfaction I just close Firefox and then reopen it. One of my addons is Session Manager which saves and reloads the open tabs. Closing and reloading Firefox which I do maybe a couple of times a day and I am a heavy internet user, also takes under 10 seconds unless Firefox needs to update a addon when it is reloaded then it might take 15 seconds tops to reload.

While I would prefer to not have use SmarfRAM and close and reload Firefox a couple of times a day the whole process takes maybe one minute a day so it is no big deal.



Windows 7 x64 does a good job of handling memory and I might be okay without using SmartRAM but I am more comfortable using it.

I tend to keep between 7 - 10 tabs open all day long. I don't know if keeping fewer tabs open would reduce the memory usage if the webpages open are those that are heavy in Java Script and Flash because Firefox may still not release memory even with fewer tabs kept open.

 

[kak2a2]

waiting for this : )
thanks for the good news