AfterDawn: Tech news

Firefox 4 coming March 22nd

Written by Andre Yoskowitz @ 18 Mar 2011 12:36 User comments (10)

Firefox 4 coming March 22nd Following 12 betas and the recent RC, Mozilla has said today that Firefox 4 will be officially released on March 22nd for Windows, Mac and Linux.
Firefox 4 is most notable due to the addition of hardware-accelerated browsing.

Chrome 10 has partial acceleration and the new Internet Explorer 9 offers acceleration for users with AMD chips.

The browser features a minimalist interface, much improved JavaScript performance, increased HTML5 support (including WebM) and a revamped plug-in architecture called JetPack.

Firefox 4 adds the ability to create tab groups (dubbed Panorama), and adds tab pinning, as well. Frequently used sites, like Gmail and Twitter can be created into App Tabs, which means they will pin, and glow when updated (new tweets, new emails).



As with past versions, you can sync all settings, passwords, bookmarks and open tabs to mobile devices via secured 26-character key.

Finally, the browser adds "do not track" to the "advanced" settings screen. By checking the option, you are telling sites that you do not want to be tracked for specialized advertising.

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10 user comments

118.3.2011 00:55

Quote:
Finally, the browser adds "do not track" to the "advanced" settings screen. By checking the option, you are telling sites that you do not want to be tracked for specialized advertising.

I do that already; Just block the cookies you don't use often.

218.3.2011 02:06

Should be interesting to see what part of the UI they screw up next.

318.3.2011 07:40

Until they get most bookmarks working on it.... pass....

418.3.2011 10:22
lissenup2
Inactive

Originally posted by ROMaster2:
Quote:
Finally, the browser adds "do not track" to the "advanced" settings screen. By checking the option, you are telling sites that you do not want to be tracked for specialized advertising.

I do that already; Just block the cookies you don't use often.
I have all browsers set to "Never remember history" and as I see this........."cookies" aren't the only things tracking you. I could be wrong because this is a gray area but I believe that they track through other methods than just simple cookies.

Check it out and let me/us know.

518.3.2011 10:45
lissenup2
Inactive

Originally posted by ZippyDSM:
Until they get most bookmarks working on it.... pass....

Mind telling us what you mean by this because it just sounds like cooky talk. No problems w/bookmarks on it now that I can tell..........unless of course you're hen-pecking the little bookmark icons not always displaying.........which would be ridiculous and petty.

You do realise that walking requires putting one foot in front of the other right???

618.3.2011 12:44

Not sure about the bookmarks either Zip?

Tried the betas but a few of my necessary extensions weren't compatible, hoping they all are with official release because 4.0 is VERY nice compared to 3.6, which I always felt was bulky.

Chrome 10 user here but like having the latest Firefox on any machine I have because frankly, some sites just work better on it.

718.3.2011 14:21

Err......zippy slip I was thinking about the multirow tool bar addon and how it shows bookmarks and said bookmarks rather than addons......

I know I know I was talking about B but was really thinking of C when I should have said A......... =0-o=

818.3.2011 14:34

Firefox at this point reminds me of IE6. It's headed that way unfortunately and I just have no trust in Microsoft after what they did there. Similarly, I have not much trust left in Mozilla to give me a good, highly customisable browser. Since the memory leaks of 3.6 and not seeing much improvement in 4.0beta (tried several), I refuse to go back to Firefox and have switched to Chrome. Not only that, but Mozilla outright REFUSES to admit their problems, blaming add-ons on poor Firefox performance. I have tried with a CLEAN profile and still can have Firefox reach 1 GB on Google's homepage.

If you want to compare layout engines, WebKit is far more advanced than Gecko. The V8 JS compiler in Chrome is much faster than Firefox, including 4.0. I just don't care about Firefox anymore, I might just stop putting -moz-prefixed directives in my CSS.

What is Mozilla's goal now besides appeasing the users it has left? Their plan to make a new release schedule and try to compete with Chrome is so utterly ridiculous to a former Firefox user like me and only incites more uncertainty and doubt within about Mozilla in general.

918.3.2011 17:46

Originally posted by tatsh:
Firefox at this point reminds me of IE6. It's headed that way unfortunately and I just have no trust in Microsoft after what they did there. Similarly, I have not much trust left in Mozilla to give me a good, highly customisable browser. Since the memory leaks of 3.6 and not seeing much improvement in 4.0beta (tried several), I refuse to go back to Firefox and have switched to Chrome. Not only that, but Mozilla outright REFUSES to admit their problems, blaming add-ons on poor Firefox performance. I have tried with a CLEAN profile and still can have Firefox reach 1 GB on Google's homepage.
I can partially agree with you... however, I have the EXACT same Firefox setup at home and on my work PC, same add-ons, etc. and my home machine NEVER eats up memory. I can leave the app open for weeks and it plugs along just fine. By the same token, I have to exit FF every few hours on my work PC, as it does get past 500mb or better in usage.

The only culprit I point my finger at is the Flash extension, which seems to always crash or eat up memory when I'm working with different sites using it. Unfortunately all of the suggested tweaks in the world still haven't fixed it for me. Doesn't explain much when PC 1 is fine and PC 2 isn't. I'm sure they're in the same boat.

I say let's see what 4 has in store for us, maybe it will be worth using.

1022.3.2011 06:00

Official update is tomorrow, but Firefox 4 is available for download now for those who can't wait. For: Windows, Mac, and Linux.

http://t.co/de9vmKn

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