
Back to the front of the pack: Ars reviews Firefox 4 - brianwillis
http://arstechnica.com/open-source/reviews/2011/03/ars-reviews-firefox-4.ars
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ChaseB
I love the app tab concept. Just wish the favicon would update and tell me
when new mail has arrived.

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drivebyacct2
Chrome has had that for over a year (nearly two years?) now.

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joakin
Whenever somebody says that they love something about firefox 4 are you going
to reply like that?

Congrats on chrome, but berfore they did it there already was tab mix plus and
faviconize extensions which had this concept.

Yeah, everybody copies the good stuff, that's what good about competition.
Don't be mean and ironic with useless information on other people's positive
comments.

Both are great software, there is no need to fight over and be always looking
for the fight

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drivebyacct2
It wasn't meant like that. The comment acted as if it was something new, it's
not that hard to read it that way. "I hope this takes off" definitely makes it
sound as if it's a brand new feature just coming out or something.

It wasn't meant even half as maliciously as you read into it.

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ihumanable
This update is really very nice. I prefer Chrome over Firefox, but I can't
live without Firebug. I know Chrome developer tools are nice and workable but
Firebug just seems better to me somehow, may just be familiarity.

I've stuck it out with Firefox for a long time so I could continue using my
beloved Firebug, but with this new version instead of feeling tethered to an
unwieldy behemoth I feel happy in my browser.

Congrats to the Firefox team.

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lallysingh
I had to wait until the end of the article to see that FF4 is still one
monolithic process. Everything else aside, that means I still have to restart
it occasionally to get memory back. And the tab-of-death problem remains.

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jokermatt999
They do have Flash isolated, which has solved my main "tab of death" issue.
However, I'm probably not a good example here, because I haven't had FF crash
in months, at least. I honestly can't remember when it did last crash, except
that the only ones I can think of involved Flash.

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jaybol
I've been really happy with Chrome after using Firefox for a long time. I
couldn't bear one more Adobe Flash Plugin crash. Has any Chrome user here
switched over to Firefox 4 and been pleased with it?

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guelo
If you'd have read the article to the end you would have seen that Firefox now
isolates browser plugins so they don't take down the browser with them.

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skippybosco
With the addition of the FlashBlock plugin (<http://flashblock.mozdev.org/>)
the chance of those crashes happening drops significantly.

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swaits
This can be done without a plugin in Chrome. Simply go to about:flags and
enable the Click to Play plugins option. This enables an extra option in the
prefs under Content Settings IIRC, that allows you to force any, all, or
specific plugins to behave this way. Godsend.

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nnutter
I'm still debating on whether to use Firefox 4. Both Safari and Chrome seem to
exhibit "lock ups" while opening a few tabs or while loading content. Maybe
others have experience the same thing?

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bvi
Not being snarky, but instead of debating, why don't you try (or "force
yourself") to use FF4 for a full day or two before making a decision?

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nnutter
When I say debating I mean picking the least annoying one after having used
all of them at their current version for a few days.

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skippybosco
I am surprised to see that a restart of the browser is still required to
enable / disable extensions and themes in the new FireFox 4.

Is this the case with Chrome as well?

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hpaavola
Firefox has also other type of extensions. Jetpack extensions (
<https://jetpack.mozillalabs.com/> ) which don't require restarts. And there
are also "mini themes", called Personas ( <http://www.getpersonas.com/en-US/>
) which don't require restarts.

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speleding
Hmm, "New window" (or option N) doesn't work if the current focus is on a
window on my second monitor. Very annoying since that's my browsing screen.

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robin_reala
Just tried that here and I can’t replicate (10.6.6).

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speleding
I'm on 10.6.7, perhaps that's why. It is consistent on two Mac Pro's I tried
with dual screens, so it should be easy to replicate.

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focusaurus
I am seeing many things copied from Chrome. Reading the article top to bottom:

-Tabs above the address bar

-1 button for stop/refresh

-single star button for bookmarks

-transient status bar

-manage extensions in a tab

-pinning tabs

Tab groups, awesome bar, sync, and the privacy features do look awesome
though. Will try them out for a while.

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smackay
The photo at the start of the article is of a Red Panda,
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_panda>, not a fox (of any kind).

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riffraff
that is supposed to be the meaning of "firefox"
[http://www.mozilla.org/projects/firefox/firefox-name-
faq.htm...](http://www.mozilla.org/projects/firefox/firefox-name-faq.html)

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smackay
I stand corrected. I guess Fire Panda does not have the same ring to it.

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tobylane
It's still the slowest.. Proper tests here
[http://uk.gizmodo.com/5784454/browser-speed-tests-
firefox-4-...](http://uk.gizmodo.com/5784454/browser-speed-tests-
firefox-4-internet-explorer-9-chrome-11-and-more)

From what I saw in the arstech article, the graphics are somewhere between
bulkly ie8, and super clean Opera. Has any FF user used another browser
properly and gone back for something other than extensions? It really does
seem to suck from what I see. And now Opera and Safari have a lot of good
extensions, FF should be dying out, but it probably won't.

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tobylane
Yey I got downvoted for a link to a test, and a possibly-too-modern but
realistic view.

