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Firefox 4 is here

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Re: Firefox 4 is here

#161
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.

I like having a title bar, I park collapsed Trillian chat windows up there and I HATE that Chrome doesn't give me space to do that. It's a UI deal breaker for Chrome for me.

[deleted]

Re: Firefox 4 is here

#162
post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

this should be shipped on be default. edit: "this" appears to be as yet undefined. Unless ... can someone point me to whatever "maximize" is? edit: FF4 does not behave as you describe on my WinXP box at work.

Press the little button in the titlebar that makes any window fill the screen.

Note that tabs will appear in the titlebar when maximized on Windows only, for Firefox 4, and only if you have the menu bar hidden. (It's hidden by default in Windows Vista and 7.) Tabs in the titlebar are planned for Mac and Linux too, but weren't ready for this release.

Re: Firefox 4 is here

#163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is usually a graphics driver problem. Try updating your drivers or disable hardware acceleration in the Firefox preferences (under Advanced: General: Browsing).

Disabling hardware acceleration worked for me. I'm on Windows 7, and now, with it disabled, it looks like Cleartype is working as it should. With hardware acceleration enabled, it looks like Cleartype isn't working, but Firefox doing its own anti-aliasing, and doing a worse job of it. Does that sound reasonable?

With hardware acceleration, Windows DirectWrite is handling the text rendering. Unfortunately, there are bugs in many graphics drivers that interfere with this.

Re: Firefox 4 is here

#164

The new "menu in the upper left" seems to be rather badly designed. It's missing the "View" menu entirely, which makes it impossible for me to view non-ASCII/Unicode websites. It took me about 5 minutes of searching and frantically right-clicking to re-enable the old menu, which of course still had the View menu. On a positive note, 4 is so much faster than 3.6 it isn't even funny. It's like going from a 286 running…

You should never need to change the default encoding. If you have to it means the web page you are viewing is broken.

Re: Firefox 4 is here

#165
post #2

Lets say I'm a chrome user (and loving it), is Firefox4 worth a try? What are the main differences from the last version?

For me, search on the address bar is the most important feature that I love about Chrome. IE9 has the same thing now. I am not sure why Firefox 4 did not put search on the address bar. So for a Chrome user, you will greatly miss that feature. :( Until FF integrates that, I am back to using Chrome.

Re: Firefox 4 is here

#166
post #157
post #2

Lets say I'm a chrome user (and loving it), is Firefox4 worth a try? What are the main differences from the last version?

Right. Is it just me or does it seem that most (if not all) of the new features in this release were inspired by Chrome? What is Firefox doing to move the web browsing experience forward?

Some of the best features in Firefox 4 are new web technologies like HTTP Strict Transport Security, WebGL, hardware acceleration, CSS3 calc() and any(), the HTML5 parser, and IndexedDB. Many of these are not yet in Chrome.

See http://www.mozilla.com/firefox/technology/ for a longer list.

Re: Firefox 4 is here

#168

Am I the only one that does not understand why Firefox still has a 'Google search' field at the left? Why not use Chrome's approach and merge the two of them - at least give me the possibility to hide it. (And I am aware of the possibility so search in other sites than google, but I 'never' want to do that.)

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.

Uh, you do know you can turn that off in chrome? I realize it's the default, but those of us who can switch browsers at the drop of a hat can handle it... I think. :-)

Re: Firefox 4 is here

#169
post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sync intentionally doesn't allow you to see your data on the web: it's encrypted . If you could view it through a webpage, it could be stolen or subpoenaed, and we're not willing to take that risk with your passwords and history. If you want to see what Sync is doing, you can add the Sync icon to the Add-on toolbar. If you really want to see what it's doing, turn on logging and look in about:sync-log!

Speaking of private data and encryption, do you know which FF file is responsible for History data? I know the Bookmarks json file but I'm looking to keep my history file as a backup too (which I believe FF doesn't backup like it does bookmarks). I hope it isn't places.sqlite file because it gets ridiculously huge even after you wipe your data clean. I wish to rely on my own backup system for both bookmarks and histo…

Yes, places.sqlite stores the history. The reason it grows by large increments (and does not shrink to very small sizes) is to prevent file fragmentation, which can have a big effect on the speed of the browser.

Re: Firefox 4 is here

#170
post #106
post #38

I started using Firefox again the day I heard about the 4.0 Release Candidate, and thought I could give it a another try after it failed to convince me the few times I tried to use it in the past. I was pleasently surprised. The browser's way faster; launching it doesn't take that much time; the UI is way more responsive; and all the add-ons I've been using in the past are compatible with 4.0 (Web Developer, Firebug,…

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.

Not sure if they work on FF4 (yet), but there are add-ons for that, of course.

I don't mind losing the title bar, since I've long been in the habit of alt+dragging to move windows anyway.

(This is a linux-ism, but well worth installing 3rd party software on OSX/Windows for -- particularly for alt + middle/right-button resizing: no need to screw around landing your mouse on a corner of the window.)

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