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Firefox 4 is here

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Re: Firefox 4 is here

#141

Post by mbrubeck »

joesb wrote: post #128
holygoat wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Everything you type in Chrome's location bar is sent to Google, most likely unencrypted. Every single character. If you want to turn this behavior on in Firefox, you can do so with a simple add-on: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-us/firefox/addon/omnibar/ but it's off by default because of the MASSIVE privacy implications.

Just because Chrome does that doesn't mean Firefox must do exactly the same. Merging location bar and search bar doesn't mean you can't give URL higher priority or that you must query search suggestion every key stroke.

If you just want to search from the address bar without suggestions, you can already do that in Firefox 4. Just type a word and press return.

Re: Firefox 4 is here

#143

Post by roadnottaken »

Meh. One of the smoothest features of Chrome (that won a lot of adherents) was how you could close lots of tabs quickly without moving the mouse (i.e. the tabs only re-size after you move the mouse away). Same for opening tabs. How did FF4 not copy this? It looks just like Chrome only crappier.

Re: Firefox 4 is here

#144

Post by ootachi »

joesb wrote: post #128
holygoat wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Everything you type in Chrome's location bar is sent to Google, most likely unencrypted. Every single character. If you want to turn this behavior on in Firefox, you can do so with a simple add-on: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-us/firefox/addon/omnibar/ but it's off by default because of the MASSIVE privacy implications.

Just because Chrome does that doesn't mean Firefox must do exactly the same. Merging location bar and search bar doesn't mean you can't give URL higher priority or that you must query search suggestion every key stroke.

Well, Firefox basically does that already, then. You can enter search terms in the URL bar and hit Enter to search. If you then hide the search box, you've got what you suggest.

Re: Firefox 4 is here

#145

Post by jlongster »

roadnottaken wrote: post #143

Meh. One of the smoothest features of Chrome (that won a lot of adherents) was how you could close lots of tabs quickly without moving the mouse (i.e. the tabs only re-size after you move the mouse away). Same for opening tabs. How did FF4 not copy this? It looks just like Chrome only crappier.

That small of a nicety overshadows all of the other great things about Firefox 4?

Also, the Firefox team is implementing that but it didn't make it into this release. You can find out all sorts of things they are working on at http://wiki.mozilla.org.

Re: Firefox 4 is here

#146

Post by gue5t »

Firefox 4 still has a huge number of UI issues on linux due to reliance on XUL for the UI. There have been improvements in a couple extensions, as far as font colors using GTK themes go, but the menubar is still too tall and has the wrong font color (on basically every GTK theme and theme engine I can find) and keyboard shortcuts for several things (e.g. space to toggle menu items without closing the menu) are removed from GTK. Using RGBA with the murrine GTK engine, alpha transparency leaves "ghosts" on hovered menu options in Firefox, and buttons occasionally completely change their look pre- and post-hover (firebug had a drop-down that would "segment" itself when hovered, for example).

Add this to the completely non-native tabs and toolbar, and the lack of a status bar, and the UI is simply unusable imo. A native UI using an established toolkit, or a custom-built UI with usability in mind would both be preferable to the current halfway kludge.

Re: Firefox 4 is here

#147

Post by slig »

holygoat wrote: post #100
rufugee wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know about you, but using Chrome has always given me this unsettling feeling that somewhere in Google's server farm, a machine is collecting everything I do and linking it to my other activity (gmail, gdocs, etc). It might now actually be going on, but it's hard for me to trust that it's not. I just don't like giving a behemoth like Google access to my complete internet history, even though the most harmful t…

I'm pretty sure that's the case :D Chrome's location bar provides everything you _type_ to Google, and using its sync feature gives them all of your bookmarks and history.

> Chrome's location bar provides everything you _type_ to Google

That can be changed on about:flags

> sync feature gives them all of your bookmarks and history.

Unless you don't use Gmail and do all your websearch using Incognito, I don't see that as a problem.

Re: Firefox 4 is here

#148

Post by niels_olson »

gcr wrote: post #121
pldpld wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why is title bar there? I was hoping they'd push the tabs up into the title bar like Chrome and give us more screen space.

Maximize. It puts the tabs in the title bar when you maximize.

Where is this "maximize"? Is it an add-on? A button I'm not seeing?

edit: why the downvotes? I'm at work on my rickety WinXP corporate box, and FF4 definitely does not behave as described above. (Do really think I didn't try that?!)

Re: Firefox 4 is here

#149

Post by ootachi »

roadnottaken wrote: post #143

Meh. One of the smoothest features of Chrome (that won a lot of adherents) was how you could close lots of tabs quickly without moving the mouse (i.e. the tabs only re-size after you move the mouse away). Same for opening tabs. How did FF4 not copy this? It looks just like Chrome only crappier.

https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=465086

There is a patch there, it just didn't get reviewed in time for Firefox 4.

Re: Firefox 4 is here

#150

Post by roadnottaken »

jlongster wrote: post #145
roadnottaken wrote: post #143

Meh. One of the smoothest features of Chrome (that won a lot of adherents) was how you could close lots of tabs quickly without moving the mouse (i.e. the tabs only re-size after you move the mouse away). Same for opening tabs. How did FF4 not copy this? It looks just like Chrome only crappier.

That small of a nicety overshadows all of the other great things about Firefox 4? Also, the Firefox team is implementing that but it didn't make it into this release. You can find out all sorts of things they are working on at http://wiki.mozilla.org .

Down-vote, really? I was just giving my first impression, which was 'not better than Chrome' and 'looks clunky'.

Also, Chrome has had that feature for over a year and in that time it's won a lot of praise from a lot of places. Granted, it's just one little feature that doesn't matter that much... but that's what people refer to when they speak of "polish" and "user experience" and I think that stuff matters more to people than you might think.

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