

Firefox 4 Nightly - rottencupcakes
http://ftp.mozilla.org/pub/mozilla.org/firefox/nightly/latest-trunk/

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w1ntermute
This is _not_ the actual beta. These are just nightlies tagged as the beta
(the version string was updated to 'beta') for testing purposes. This same
story showed up on Slashdot and Mozilla's Asa Dotzler commented on it:
[http://news.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=1702398&cid=327...](http://news.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=1702398&cid=32734096)

You can find the Firefox 4 Beta when it's actually released here:
<https://www.mozilla.com/en-US/firefox/all-beta.html>

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jurjenh
Interesting that when you launch the windows installer, it says nothing about
firefox, it says _Installing Minefield_

Is this some quirky pun on the fact that it is pre-release software? Or is
there a more general name change in the works?

[edit] Seems it is due to the testing process -
<http://www.mozilla.org/projects/minefield/> _WARNING: THIS IS NOT A FINAL
VERSION OF FIREFOX_ and then goes on to say:

This program is provided without any guarantees of stability and you should
back up your profile regularly as there may be bugs that corrupt your data. If
that sounds scary, please use the latest version of Firefox.

~~~
travisjeffery
They've always used Minefield for nightly and alpha builds.

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axod
This includes WebSocket support - which seems to work great :)

Well done Firefox team!

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bosch
I've been using the nightly's for the last 3 weeks and they've worked great
without any crashes. I'd recommend upgrading if you're comfortable with beta
software as I believe most of the big bugs have worked out. The only major bug
I've noticed is that using right click and selecting 'back' doesn't always
work.

The latest build moves the tabs to the top which is an interesting change and
takes some time to get used to.

It's interesting how FF and IE now differ in layout from top down:

FF: Title Bar, Menu Bar, Tabs, URL, Bookmark Toolbar (default hidden) IE:
Title Bar, URL Bar, Menu (default hidden), Tabs

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ihodes
I'm away from my desktop for another week: my only question is if they've put
any thought into speeding up startup times and/or improving the UX and design
on Macs. Firefox used to be great, but it's really fallen behind in terms of
speed and usability. I hope this changes that.

EDIT: Thanks for the replies! I'll be giving it a try again. It's good to have
choices.

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mbrubeck
Here are the design mockups for how Firefox 4 should eventually look by
default on Mac OS X: <https://wiki.mozilla.org/Firefox/4.0_Mac_Theme_Mockups>

These designs are not fully implemented in current nightly builds, and are
subject to change. Also, here are the Windows and Linux mockups:

<https://wiki.mozilla.org/Firefox/4.0_Windows_Theme_Mockups>

<https://wiki.mozilla.org/Firefox/4.0_Linux_Theme_Mockups>

There are quite a few performance improvements going into Firefox 4, with a
strong focus on startup time. See <http://autonome.wordpress.com/tag/startup/>
for detailed tracking of Firefox startup improvements.

~~~
pbhjpbhj
I wish there were a version with less chrome and more web real estate - I've
thinned my current version down as much as I can really (Cool Menu 2 FTW) but
the tab height is about twice the font height and the menubar (in which I have
my location and search bars) is twice the icon height. Why waste all this
space - I understand negative space but really this seems to be too much form
not enough function, browser chrome should be as slim as possible but still
usable IMO; if I use a small font it should be smaller.

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alanh
I see virtually nothing noteworthy on <http://modernizr.com> in these 4.0 pre-
release builds — no real new HTML/CSS features, no 3D transforms, etc.

~~~
mbrubeck
Yeah, a lot of our engineering effort is going into performance right now,
rather than new features. But here are some of the HTML and CSS features in
Firefox 4:

\- HTML5 parser (SVG/MathML in HTML, new semantic elements)

\- HTML5 forms (only partly implemented so far)

\- Web Sockets

\- CSS3 transitions

\- CSS3 calc()

\- IndexedDB (schemaless client-side database)

\- WebM (VP8) codec for HTML5 video

\- SVG backgrounds and images in CSS and HTML

\- ECMAScript 5 features in JavaScript

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ashleyw
Does 3.7 == 4.0? Or hasn't the new UI been pushed to the nightly builds yet?
(at least for OSX)

~~~
mbrubeck
Yes, the 3.7 release was renamed to 4.0. See
[http://beltzner.ca/mike/2010/05/10/firefox-4-fast-
powerful-a...](http://beltzner.ca/mike/2010/05/10/firefox-4-fast-powerful-and-
empowering/) for details. Not all of the new UI is in nightly builds yet (much
of it is just finishing the design phase).

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known
You need to set extensions.checkCompatibility.4.0b=false

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InclinedPlane
I don't care what their rationale is, the version numbering ideology of the
mozilla foundation is dumb. There's not a good enough reason to stick to
version 3.7 for a "version 4" beta, it's super annoying and makes them look
amateurish.

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dareiff
They have clear roadmaps for each major version number. I'm not so sure I'd
consider it dumb.

~~~
InclinedPlane
It's fine as long as you keep consistent naming. Calling 3.7 version 4 is
dumb, if you're going to call it 4 then bump up the version number, if you're
not going to bump up the version number until later then stop calling it 4.

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tiles
They're calling it 4. This isn't the official beta. The 3.7 are just old
executables lingering in the FTP folder.

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cmelbye
Seems to be working very well: <http://cl.ly/1W6b>

~~~
ashleyw
That's a custom theme. Disable that and it should be fine.

