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Adrian Kingsley-Hughes
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Firefox 4.0 beta 1 out

By | July 6, 2010, 2:57pm PDT

If you like living on the cutting edge of software, you’ll want to download Firefox 4.0 beta 1.

Those keeping track of such things will know that Firefox 4.0 was previously known as 3.7. That aside, there are some cool new features available in this release:

- Tabs are now on top by default on Windows only - OSX and Linux will be changing when the theme has been modified to support the change.
- On Windows Vista and Windows 7 the menu bar has been replaced with the Firefox button.
- 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 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 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.
- An experimental Direct2D rendering backend is available on Windows, turned off by default.
- Web developers can use Websockets for a low complexity, low latency, bidirectional communications API.
- 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.

Download available here. Release notes here.

I’ll be taking this browser for a spin for a while and I’ll give you my initial thoughts later.

Remember that this is a beta product, and things can go wrong, so take care.

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Topics

Mozilla Firefox, Web Browsers, Internet, Adrian Kingsley-Hughes

Adrian Kingsley-Hughes is an internationally published technology author who has devoted over a decade to helping users get the most from technology.

Disclosure

Adrian Kingsley-Hughes

All opinions expressed on Hardware 2.0 are those of Adrian Kingsley-Hughes. Every effort is made to ensure that the information posted is accurate. If you have any comments, queries or corrections, please contact Adrian via the email link here. Any possible conflicts of interest will be posted below. [Updated: February 23, 2010] - Adrian Kingsley-Hughes has no business relationships, affiliations, investments, or other actual/potential conflicts of interest relating to the content posted so far on this blog.

Biography

Adrian Kingsley-Hughes

Adrian Kingsley-Hughes is an internationally published technology author who has devoted over a decade to helping users get the most from technology -- whether that be by learning to program, building a PC from a pile of parts, or helping them get the most from their new MP3 player or digital camera.

Adrian has authored/co-authored technical books on a variety of topics, ranging from programming to building and maintaining PCs. His most recent books include "Build the Ultimate Custom PC", "Beginning Programming" and "The PC Doctor's Fix It Yourself Guide". He has also written training manuals that have been used by a number of Fortune 500 companies.

Adrian also runs a popular blog under the name The PC Doctor, where he covers a range of computer-related topics -- from security to repairing and upgrading.

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RE: Firefox 4.0 beta 1 out
FAULKNE 13th Oct
Good day to confirm this comment I would appreciate T h e b e s t o f Z D N e t d e l i v e r e d your website very nice to everyone Yes, Oracle is the only one with shared-disk architecture, but that is there advantage. It means you can add or remove nodes and the database lives on. In a shared nothing architecture, if you lose a node, you lose the system. I'm sure Oracle appreciates EMC highlighting their advantage.I also desire to signal in your RSS feeds. Thank you as soon as once again and maintain up the great operate Awesome post! Thank you very much || thanks for nice content this is really benefit to me.
View in thread
0 Votes
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Initial thought #1:
Cylon Centurion 6th Jul 2010
The UI at the top is ugly, there is too little room in between the titlebar buttons and the tabs. I hope this is rectified, unfortunately the feedback option is not working.
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Change it then.
JoeMama_z 6th Jul 2010
@NStalnecker, it's only the default.
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How?
Cylon Centurion 6th Jul 2010
It doesn't seem affected by any of the changes I have made in Explorer.
0 Votes
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@NStalnecker
ericesque 7th Jul 2010
@NStalnecker
Why are you looking for options in Explorer?? The mind boggles. Anyway, per Lifehacker: "If you don't like tabs on top, you can disable them by right-clicking empty space on the toolbar chrome and unchecking Tabs on Top."
0 Votes
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@ericesque
Cylon Centurion 7th Jul 2010
I made changes in Explorer for aesthetic reasons. I enlarged a few elements to look better on my screen, not just for the sole purpose of running Firefox beta 1.
0 Votes
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@NStalnecker
ahh so 7th Jul 2010
Nicholas, would you care to upload a .jpg of your modification so we can see what you're talking about.

Thank you. happy
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Sure
Cylon Centurion 7th Jul 2010
http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4138/4772688151_a94d3529c2_b.jpg

I have the indicated area circled in red. The beta isn't able to recognize that I have enlarged my window borders and titlebar buttons in Explorer, and the result is kinda ugly.
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Yes Nicholas..
ahh so 7th Jul 2010
...I see what you mean. While I wouldn't call it ugly, I would call it cramped and one could easily hit one of the titlebar buttons or tab buttons by mistake. Or vice-versa.

Is there a hidden menu bar? That would make the space even wider?
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Yes
Cylon Centurion 8th Jul 2010
Yeah, there is, but I loose the cool little Firefox button when I turn it on. We'll hav e to see what happens in beta 2. I sent feedback in on this, but I have a feeling it's lost in with all of the other feedback.
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RE: Firefox 4.0 beta 1 out
epark732 26th Sep
@JoeMama_z
Firefox is flat out awesome. Looking forward to this.
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0 Votes
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RE: Firefox 4.0 beta 1 out
halilturker Updated - 31st Aug
@Cylon Centurion firefox is best browser.
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0 Votes
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RE: Firefox 4.0 beta 1 out
joshuafrancis 22nd Sep
@Cylon Centurion The interface seems to be very interactive, but I dont know what is wrong with firefox six because when ever i open like 5 to 6 tabs, the browser gets stuck and shuts itself down which is really annoying.
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RE: Firefox 4.0 beta 1 out
joshuafrancis 22nd Sep
@Cylon Centurion I agree with your opinion and fully support it, you have been a great contributor and I always come to your blog as I know you always share the best of your information.
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RE: Firefox 4.0 beta 1 out
sudolar 3rd Oct
@Cylon Centurion Now with Firefox version 7... and still ugly and slow... Blackberry Nokia y Celulares
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RE: Firefox 4.0 beta 1 out
obitwo 5th Oct
@Cylon Centurion

If you like living on the learn violin online cutting edge of software, you???ll want to download Firefox 4.0 beta 1.

Those keeping track of glaucoma eyes drops such things will know that Firefox 4.0 was previously known as 3.7. That aside, there are some cool new features available in this release.
This is the single best update any software have ever had! Seriously, there are so many great features, which were not even available bright eyes drops before.
They really innovated the browser world!
Very well done, Firefox!
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I like it
MoeFugger 6th Jul 2010
Seems OK to me.
Menu is up in the black area out of the way and it has a bit more screen area, I like that.
0 Votes
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Looks nice
CobraA1 6th Jul 2010
Looks nice. I like how it uses Aero glass now, and I like tabs being on top happy.

I also like how it handles the "too many tabs" situation far, far better than Chrome. Chrome becomes unusable with too many tabs.

Still quite a few bugs, though, especially with my dual monitor setup.
0 Votes
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I agree
ahh so 7th Jul 2010
IE8 on top of an aero enabled Win7 taskbar looks ridiculous. Glad to see the new FF blend in.

Yes, it's a beta so it's gonna be buggy as hell. Don't let that stop ya.
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RE: Firefox 4.0 beta 1 out
krtinberg 30th Aug
@CobraA1 Agreed I like the tabs on top. Hopefully all the future incarnations build upon these improvements!
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0 Votes
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RE: Firefox 4.0 beta 1 out
Lghost 7th Jul 2010
looks like an opera for me.
0 Votes
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RE: Firefox 4.0 beta 1 out
CobraA1 7th Jul 2010
@leong1213 *after* Opera got rid of their hideous black UI and went for a lighter look and feel. Didn't know what you were talking about until I decided to install the most recent version. How long have they had that new UI?

Firefox has all my addons, though happy. And it has far more market share than Opera.
0 Votes
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RE: Firefox 4.0 beta 1 out
RichardWrite 7th Jul 2010
@CobraA1 Opera ditched the black UI almost a year ago, and has had some version of the current UI since then.....introduced in 10.0 (they're now at 10.6). When I first installed Firefox 4, it took me a second to realize I was looking at Firefox and not Opera.
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x64 version
optyk 7th Jul 2010
x64 version available here (still called 3.7)

http://wiki.mozilla-x86-64.com/Firefox:Download
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What about "awesome bar"
originalhandy 7th Jul 2010
Is there any way to make awesome bar like it was in Firefox 2 ? It has never learned my browsing habbits and spits out websites that I am not intersted in viewing and I have to scroll the URL's till I find what I am looking for instead of it popping right up.
Thats the only thing that bugged me about Ff3 and there is no fix / mod that returns the URL back to its classic way. Seems a little bit Microsoft in their attitude of this is the way you will browse and youll like it!
0 Votes
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RE: Firefox 4.0 beta 1 out
Silk_z 7th Jul 2010
It seems like a Google Chrome copycat.

"Crash protection for Windows, Linux, and Mac when there is a crash in the Adobe Flash, - - - - Apple Quicktime or Microsoft Silverlight plugins." -- In other word, it's the "plugin-container.exe". I wonder if Mozilla did any improvement on this. If you go to their Firefox forum, you'll see there are a lot of users having problems with this program (which eats lots of CPUs) and oftentimes it causes FF to crash. And there's no option for users to opt not to run this process. This is one of the worst "enhancements" Mozilla has ever done to Firefox.
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RE: Firefox 4.0 beta 1 out
greg-50 7th Jul 2010
i have ubuntu 10.04 installed with ppa`s for ff i am now running ff 3.6.8 with the theme vfox 3 . it looks just like ff 4.0 and runs great with extra fasterfox add on .
0 Votes
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No bleeding edge for me.
TripleII-21189418044173169409978279405827 7th Jul 2010
I am way back on 3.5.3. To the FF team, if you are reading this, you are losing steam in reliability and speed. 3.5.3 on my netbook is fast (what I am still using). 3.6.3 is a dog and after 2 hours of trying to get JavaVM to launch without an error, I gave up and went back to 3.5.3. I tried 3.6.6 is slower and for the first time ever, I am seeing "Flash plugin has crashed" pretty much constantly (reloading the page restarts it fine, but it will crash again).

I think it is time, seriously time, for nothing but a speed optimization and reliability release.

TripleII
0 Votes
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RE: Firefox 4.0 beta 1 out
maxdanger 7th Jul 2010
@TripleII
I am in complete agreement with your criticism. I was hoping to read a substantive report on the functionality of the new browser, not just a lot free promo about more bling. I have been looking at a number of different browsers recently, since FF3.5.5 has been crapping out more and more. It can't find servers after a (sometimes short) period of surfing. Often nothing (clearing cache, flushing dns, restarting FF, etc.) works except for rebooting WXP! Who wants bells+whistles when basic functionality has deteriorated to nonfunctionality?
0 Votes
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RE: Firefox 4.0 beta 1 out
Dave Keays 7th Jul 2010
So far, no earth breaking changes. The only time 3.5 crashed was at youtube when I had several windows open. 4 does is the same.

I wish they could come back with the speed of 2 and the lack of memory leaks with 3.x

I also looked at Opera for the first time in 10 years and it does look impressive (esp the speed). However, the email agent doesn't look as easy as Thunderbird and the script containment of No-Script isn't as easy in Opera.
0 Votes
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nothing earthbreaking
Dave Keays 7th Jul 2010
I didn't notice any speed differences between 3.5 and 4. The only time 3.5 crashed was at youtube when I had several windows open. 4 does is the same.

The only obvious changes were in the menu. It was interesting that the default theme came up as not compatible with 4.
0 Votes
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The www.speed-battle.com Javascript speed score increases a bit
Karl222 8th Jul 2010
On my system from 178 to 195 (average from 5 runs). The gap to Chrome and Safari has narrowed ... till the next releases from Google and Apple.
0 Votes
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RE: Firefox 4.0 beta 1 out
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RE: Firefox 4.0 beta 1 out
321myuser 28th Aug
I am always happy with firefox but there beta versions are buggy and I always wait for a long time before upgrading.
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RE: Firefox 4.0 beta 1 out
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@321myuser Firefox is always buggy for me as is IE personally I go for chrome it's quicker and has no bugs
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