Firefox 4.0 Beta 4 Download a Taste

[swarfega]

A preview of Firefox 4.0 Beta 4 is now available for download from Mozilla, allowing early adopters to get a taste of the development milestone.

Now, in all fairness, Mozilla is not quite there yet, but the browser vendor is certainly pushing Firefox 4.0 closer and closer to the fourth Beta development milestone.

In this regard, the next Beta Build of Firefox 4.0 is currently set for next Monday, namely August 23rd, 2010.

Still, as was the case with previous Beta releases of Firefox 4.0, nothing is set in stone. Provided that everything will go well, Firefox 4.0 will drop at the start of the coming week.

However, testers need to remember the recent case of Firefox 4.0 Beta 3, which was delayed for several days because of blockers associated with the Sync feature.

At this point in time, Mozilla is serving the Candidate Build of Firefox 4.0 Beta 4, through its FTP servers.

And while this is still very much a nightly build of the browser, it is closer to the actual Beta than the most recent nightly releases which introduced Tab Sets, the feature previously referred to as Tab Candy.

Tab Candy/Tab Sets is now one of the features that have been confirmed for Firefox 4.0, along with silent updates for Windows users and the new graphical user interface.

I have seen questions related to the next stage in the development process of Firefox 4.0 beyond Beta 4. And yes, there will be a Firefox 4.0 Beta 5.

Here is what Mozilla’s Director of Firefox Mike Beltzner had to say after the release of Firefox 34.0 Beta 3:

“Over the next two planned beta releases we expect to add more web-developer and user-facing features to Firefox 4, at which point we’ll hit what we call “feature freeze”,” Beltzner noted.

“After that point, we will spend all of our time fixing bugs and polishing the release for our hundreds of millions of users. It’s during this time that many of the bugs created from feedback reports will be addressed.

For the time being however, the Candidate release of Firefox 4.0 Beta 4 is available for early adopters to test, with the fully-fledged Beta 4 scheduled for August 23.

But even in the worst case scenario, namely if Beta 4 slips, Mozilla is still highly likely to release the next development milestone of Firefox 4.0 in the week of August 23.

Firefox 4.0 Beta 3 for Windows is available for download here.

Firefox 4.0 Beta 3 for Mac OS X is available for download here.

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[Lemur]

I'm playing with FF 4.0 beta 5 pre. I would expect problems, but so far none.

 

[Nickmix]

I should Firefox 4.0 Beta 5. enabled Direсt2D - everything's just fine.

 

[JMH]

Firefox Beta 4, 5, 6, 7 Coming, and All Betas Are Equal

Mozilla is currently gearing up to release the fourth Beta development milestone of Firefox 4.0, and the browser vendor has planned additional Beta releases.

In fact, as Mozilla’s Director of Firefox noted earlier this year, multiple Betas of Firefox 4.0 will be delivered, at a rate of once every couple of week or so.

According to Laura Mesa, Firefox Product Marketing Manager, Mozilla wants to change the way in which it is referring to upcoming Firefox 4.0 Beta Builds, in order to influence the public’s perception of the development process.

“Publicly, we think it’s best to start moving away from associating a number to a particular release. As of now, we have 7 scheduled Betas, and there is a possibility that we may need to have more,” Mesa noted.

“Potentially having to call out Firefox 4 Beta 9 in tweets, blogs, videos or social media could start to make it look like we've had an inefficient development cycle, and that--as well all know--couldn't be farther from the truth,” she added.

Essentially, the change would have Mozilla no longer keeping track of Firefox 4.0 Beta releases by associating a number with each Build.

More -
Firefox Beta 4, 5, 6, 7 Coming, and All Betas Are Equal - - Softpedia

 

[EnNajmy]

I guess I can wait for 2 more days for the official beta version. I'm currently using FireFox4 Beta3 Thanks Swarfega

 

[yowanvista]

Firefox 4.0 beta 4 released

Download here:

http://www.mozilla.com/en-US/products/download.html?product=firefox-4.0b4&os=win&lang=en-US

Changelog:

• Firefox 4 Beta 4 is available in 39 languages.
• Firefox Sync is now included by default.
• Users can organize their tabs using Firefox Overview.
• An experimental API is included to provide more efficient Javascript animations.
• Firefox now supports the HTML5 video "buffered" property.

Release Notes: http://www.mozilla.com/en-US/firefox/4.0b4/releasenotes/https://www-trunk.stage.mozilla.com/en-US/firefox/4.0b4/releasenotes/

 

[swarfega]

Thanks, upgraded.

 

[stevepoolstock]

Does hardware acceleration increase performance? I've run some benchmark tests and they gave lower results with hardware acceleration than without it, however I do feel that there is a render speed improvement.

I'm confused.

 

[Lemur]

Yea! Running 4.05pre. Don't forget to configure it. I ran the Acid3 test and it's the same (but better than before 4.x). What is the best site to benchmark browsers?

 

[stevepoolstock]

I use Celtic Kane, Sunspider and Peacekeeper.

 

[Nem]

I forgot where i seen it but i heard that they plan making it go up to like BETA 7. Is this true?..if so it should be a 2011 release then.

 

[s31]

“Publicly, we think it’s best to start moving away from associating a number to a particular release. As of now, we have 7 scheduled Betas, and there is a possibility that we may need to have more,” Mesa noted."

Firefox Beta 4, 5, 6, 7 Coming, and All Betas Are Equal - Softpedia

 

[Dark Nova Gamer]

Firefox 4.0b4 runs extremely quick on Ubuntu 10.10 (daily) and OS X 10.6.4. However it is rather sluggish on Windows. Same goes for 4.0b5pre

 

[swarfega]

Yea Im finding the same, tbh Im not holding out much hope for 4, compared to the speed of other browsers.

 

[BCXtreme]

Running Firefox 4 beta 4 with hardware acceleration on Windows 7 x64, absolutely lightning fast. DarkNovaGamer and swarfega, do you have a lot of addons installed in your Windows install of Firefox?

P.S. And finally, we can turn off that new "feature" that makes Windows 7's taskbar treats every tab like a separate window!

 

[Dark Nova Gamer]

Running Firefox 4 beta 4 with hardware acceleration on Windows 7 x64, absolutely lightning fast. DarkNovaGamer and swarfega, do you have a lot of addons installed in your Windows install of Firefox?

P.S. And finally, we can turn off that new "feature" that makes Windows 7's taskbar treats every tab like a separate window!

Not running any extensions that are not default. This installation of Windows has only ran Opera and Google Chrome since it was installed, this is the first install of Firefox that is has gotten. It loads horrendously slow compared to Google Chrome and Opera.

You could turn that feature off via about:config before.

 

[BCXtreme]

Running Firefox 4 beta 4 with hardware acceleration on Windows 7 x64, absolutely lightning fast. DarkNovaGamer and swarfega, do you have a lot of addons installed in your Windows install of Firefox?

P.S. And finally, we can turn off that new "feature" that makes Windows 7's taskbar treats every tab like a separate window!

Not running any extensions that are not default. This installation of Windows has only ran Opera and Google Chrome since it was installed, this is the first install of Firefox that is has gotten. It loads horrendously slow compared to Google Chrome and Opera.

That's very strange. Mine only takes a couple of seconds, and that's even with multiple addons and over a dozen saved tabs.

You could turn that feature off via about:config before.

Didn't know that. Wish I had, that feature was driving me crazy. Having it as a visible option is still nice though, instead of it just being buried in about:config.

 

[Wii Master 64]

Firefox 4 runs pretty fast for me as well. I actually turned the tab previews on in the tab bar back in 3.5 or so. I thought and still think it's a nice feature.

 

[Snowdog]

Not running any extensions that are not default. This installation of Windows has only ran Opera and Google Chrome since it was installed, this is the first install of Firefox that is has gotten. It loads horrendously slow compared to Google Chrome and Opera.

Define horrendously slow.
I timed it with my watch:
FF 4.b4 1-2 seconds.
FF 3.6.8 3-4 seconds.

I guess that is 1 or 2 seconds you will never get back.

 

[Josh7]

I was wondering do add on's not work for the beta? I have 2 add on's from my regular firefox it says incompatible does that mean it wont ever work or it just wont work right now?

Thanks