Firefox 4 Revamped!

[ishan_rulz]

For quite some time, Mozilla has been hard at work on Firefox 4. What was initially planned to be Firefox 3.7 has officially been rolled into Firefox 3.6.4, which is currently available in beta form, featuring out-of-process plugins. Firefox 4 is expected to be an all-out overhaul and evolutionary version of the world's second most popular browser.

 

On beltzner.ca, an early product plan for Firefox 4 has been made public. The roadmap is not set in stone, however, the slide show gives the world an unheard of, detailed, glimpse into what will make up Mozilla's next major release. As seen in slide 27, the first beta is expected towards the end of June, with the final release coming in November. Keep in mind, this is all subject to change.

 

Here's some of what we can expect from Firefox 4:

 

• 
   
  
• Speed - it will be "super-duper fast"
  
• Power - it will support "HTML 5 and beyond"
  
• Empowerment - users will be allowed to fully control their browser, its data, and their web experience
  
• Completely re-vamped user interface allowing layout customization and less chrome
  
• Improved stability and security
  
• Ability to install add-ons without restarting browser
  
• Better tools for developers
  
• 64-bit support
  
• Hardware acceleration
  
• Multi-touch support
  

[CTskifreak]

This is full of win. I thought I noticed some very surprising similarities between 3.6.5 (Namoroka build) and the 3.7 Alpha I had installed. This is going to be awesome.

 

AJ

[Aethec]

All this...in 6 months ? That's impressive, if they manage to do it.

[ishan_rulz]

It might even get some "migrated-to-Chrome" users back.

[Aethec]

It might even get some "migrated-to-Chrome" users back.

 

Or they might fail, and be one year late. Firefox 3.6 had only minor changes, but they had to ship it months later than expected... With all the changes they want to make to FF 4, it wouldn't surprise me.

[Anomaly]

Firefox should not be letting Chrome influence it at all. Firefox should stick with what works. Following a crap browser like chrome is stupid strategy. I see Firefox speeding up release cycles just to keep up with Chrome and they will have problems doing it.

 

I have both Firefox and Chrome on all my machines and there is no comparison. Chrome is a dumbed down browser to appeal to simpletons. This is not the user group Firefox should be targeting.

[ishan_rulz]

Firefox should not be letting Chrome influence it at all. Firefox should stick with what works. Following a crap browser like chrome is stupid strategy. I see Firefox speeding up release cycles just to keep up with Chrome and they will have problems doing it.

 

I have both Firefox and Chrome on all my machines and there is no comparison. Chrome is a dumbed down browser to appeal to simpletons. This is not the user group Firefox should be targeting.

 

But the truth is that Firefox's market share has remained more or less the same in the last couple of months and Chrome is picking up rapidly. People DO love Chrome more than Firefox.

 

Anyway, it has always been Firefox for me.

[Anomaly]

But the truth is that Firefox's market share has remained more or less the same in the last couple of months and Chrome is picking up rapidly. People DO love Chrome more than Firefox.

 

Anyway, it has always been Firefox for me.

 

The people loving Chrome are not teck types. Thats why they don't use Firefox or Opera. They just don't get it. They use Chrome which is a dumb browser. This is not the way Firefox should go.

[Icedrake]

This sounds epic!

[Talldog9]

I hate chrome!

[Anomaly]

I hate chrome!

But why? It has so much to like about it. It's ugly. Looks like a brain damaged five year old designed it. Massive resource pig. Missing even basic features like RSS feed detection. Very intrusive browser, can't turn off auto update without hacking it. Has 4000+ extensions and 99.99999% are absolutely junk. It's a big attempt by Google to dumb down the world of browsers and seems to be succeeding judging by how fast it is caching on with the stupid people I know. Seems the more stupid they are the more they like Chrome.

[ident]

The people loving Chrome are not teck types. Thats why they don't use Firefox or Opera. They just don't get it. They use Chrome which is a dumb browser. This is not the way Firefox should go.

 

 

Very much agree with this. Google is shoved down every ones faces constantly when browsing the internet. So they see chrome.

 

How many of the average users even ever think about to search for a new browser?

[hazelnut]

Using a new browser can be quite scary for some people. You get used to things being the same way and understand where things are etc. Different browsers seem to keep things different places.

 

At the moment I use IE8, Opera and K-Meleon. I'm working on the assumption that as they all used different engines I should always be able to connect with one of them in the event of a browser render problem!!

[Andavari]

Google is shoved down every ones faces constantly when browsing the internet. So they see chrome.

Sort of since they have a popular search engine, and several freeware software titles. I personally can't get along with Chrome, it's just too bare bones basic for changing things to my liking, the same goes for other Chromium-based browsers too. I've been spoiled far too long in the past with Opera, and especially now with Firefox to consider a browser that isn't very user customizable under the hood.

[ident]

Sort of since they have a popular search engine, and several freeware software titles. I personally can't get along with Chrome, it's just too bare bones basic for changing things to my liking, the same goes for other Chromium-based browsers too. I've been spoiled far too long in the past with Opera, and especially now with Firefox to consider a browser that isn't very user customizable under the hood.

 

Im a fan of opera also. I use firefox 99.99% of the time. How ever there are a few sites i visit that firefox can't connect with properly. So i use opera. Lovely little browser.

[Anomaly]

 

At the moment I use IE8, Opera and K-Meleon. I'm working on the assumption that as they all used different engines I should always be able to connect with one of them in the event of a browser render problem!!

 

 

How are you liking K-Meleon it's been years since I tried it. I remember that I had to do a lot of ini file editing to customize it.

[hazelnut]

How are you liking K-Meleon it's been years since I tried it. I remember that I had to do a lot of ini file editing to customize it.

 

I'm liking it a lot. Took a while to find my way around it Opera is still my default but every so often I like to use another browser for a few months just for a change.

 

I have also used Sleipnir for about 6 months.

 

I keep K-Mel lean by only have a handfull of sites in it's hotlist. I like the download box and certain other features, it's just nice to have a change sometimes.

 

Strange thing is although K-Mel uses the Firefox engine I have never been very keen on Firefox. I have tried it of course but if you asked me what it was I didn't care for about it, I doubt if I could give you an answer.

[Icedrake]

I've also gotten tired of Chrome/Chromium's resource hogging. Even though it's user interface makes it look sleek and fast, it's actually quite bloated. On my computer, Chromium took up over 300 megs of disk space, while FF & Opera took under 50. I am not going back to Chromium soon.

[Anomaly]

I've also gotten tired of Chrome/Chromium's resource hogging. Even though it's user interface makes it look sleek and fast, it's actually quite bloated. On my computer, Chromium took up over 300 megs of disk space, while FF & Opera took under 50. I am not going back to Chromium soon.

I think the interface looks childish. It's disturbing that Chrome has caught on the way it has. Things like bloat and resource usage used to matter to people now they don't seem to care. Chrome is by far the biggest user of resources but I keep reading about how "light" it is. Where do they get this from?

 

I think it has caught on because it is so basic. The learning curve is very small. Compare that to Opera. If you dig into Opera the customization options are huge. The built in features set is probably over whelming to many.

[Inherent.Conflict]

But why? It has so much to like about it. It's ugly. Looks like a brain damaged five year old designed it. Massive resource pig. Missing even basic features like RSS feed detection. Very intrusive browser, can't turn off auto update without hacking it. Has 4000+ extensions and 99.99999% are absolutely junk. It's a big attempt by Google to dumb down the world of browsers and seems to be succeeding judging by how fast it is caching on with the stupid people I know. Seems the more stupid they are the more they like Chrome.

 

I think calling people stupid because they use a different browser from you is taking things a little too far mate. I switched from Firefox to Chrome a couple of months ago and never looked back. It's fast, sleek, secure, and the UI gets out of my way. And have you even used Firefox? Now THAT piece of bloatware is a memory hog.

 

In the end though it's just a browser, and everyone has their preferences.

[Anomaly]

I think calling people stupid because they use a different browser from you is taking things a little too far mate. I switched from Firefox to Chrome a couple of months ago and never looked back. It's fast, sleek, secure, and the UI gets out of my way. And have you even used Firefox? Now THAT piece of bloatware is a memory hog.

 

In the end though it's just a browser, and everyone has their preferences.

Couple things here. Ah yeah I use Firefox every day and it's no where near as bloated as Chrome. If you read this thread you would know I use Firefox so why ask if I have? I don' think there is a browser I haven't used and I currently use 6 different ones on three different OS.

 

I never said people that use Chrome are stupid. I said the stupid people I know use it and like it. I did say that Chrome users are less tech types and that's true. I also said Chrome was a dumb browser because of it's simplicity and total lack of anything and that is also true. If the truth hurts oh well.

 

Your another of these people saying Chrome is not a hog. How can you say that? What are you basing that on. Have you compared RAM usage, disk space, disk activity etc? I keep hearing all these Chrome fans make this claim but there is no backing it up. So why not be the first to back it up?

[ishan_rulz]

I've been using Firefox ever since I became Tech savvy (2 years back?)... Yeah, I agree people go for Chrome just because they think its fast. How wrong.

 

Anyway, I keep Chrome for HTML5 Emergencies. I use Firefox 99.9999% of the time

[ident]

And have you even used Firefox? Now THAT piece of bloatware is a memory hog.

 

 

we are not in the day and age where we have to worry about absolute optimization of variables

[ishan_rulz]

I think calling people stupid because they use a different browser from you is taking things a little too far mate. I switched from Firefox to Chrome a couple of months ago and never looked back. It's fast, sleek, secure, and the UI gets out of my way. And have you even used Firefox? Now THAT piece of bloatware is a memory hog.

 

In the end though it's just a browser, and everyone has their preferences.

 

You don't really know what you're saying, do you?

[Aethec]

we are not in the day and age where we have to worry about absolute optimization of variables

 

No. However, we are in the day and age where we have to worry about a program that just can't release memory.

Try it : Open 10 tabs, with at least one Flash video, and then close all but two or three. Then look at FF's memory usage. Close it, open it again (it will re-open the tabs), and look at its memory usage.

I just did that ; with four tabs open, it went from 460 MB to 84 simply by restarting it.