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Firefox 4.0rc1
Just wondering if anybody else is testing this new release.
Installed it last night on a Windows 7 machine, and it’s a bit different when it comes to handling fonts. I’ve been following these two threads at mozillaZine: Direct2d/DirectWrite and Font Rendering. Following the advice in these threads, I upgraded my ATI drivers, and then I was able to install SP1 via Windows Update.
After all that, the fonts were still not what I was accustomed to in 3.6.15, actually I felt I was back in Linux screwing with modelines in xconfig. I’ve had to set gfx.direct2d.disabled to true to get fonts looking better, at least for now I can take advantage of the other enhancements in 4.0. Seems like Mozilla is trying to stay in step with IE9, since Microsoft will be using Direct2d and DirectWrite to speed up their browser.
Anyway, a heads up, since Firefox 4.0 looks to be a couple a weeks away from a final release.
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Re: Firefox 4.0rc1
Hello Bert,
I gave a Beta version a run last week, but t’was on a Mac. It looked fine and the problems 3.6 had handling @fontface fonts seem to have been ironed out and ‘normal’ font rendering seemed very good. Overall, it was slicker and faster. I reverted back to 3.6 the same day because the 4.0 Beta couldn’t handle Firebug et al. If there is a RC for Mac, I likely will try that on too.
Last edited by joebaich (2011-03-10 18:10:18)
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Re: Firefox 4.0rc1
joebaich wrote:
If there is a RC for Mac, I likely will try that on too.
Yes, RC1 is out for the Mac, though I don’t think there are any font issues on the Mac.
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Re: Firefox 4.0rc1
Yes, nice and zippy on a mac! Great to see all the browser makers outdoing each other on speed efficiency and more recently in tightening security. That’s what it should be about. A real pity there’s a not an upgrade path to IE9 from Windows XP as that would make our lives a lot easier.
Joe, check out the firebug site for the most recent beta – it works better than ever with firefox 4.
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Re: Firefox 4.0rc1
jakob wrote:
Yes, nice and zippy on a mac! Great to see all the browser makers outdoing each other on speed efficiency and more recently in tightening security.
Great indeed. Good release from Mozilla, pretty good GUI too on Mac. Personally I’m more interested in Gecko 2, and parser changes than the performance, tho.
That’s what it should be about. A real pity there’s a not an upgrade path to IE9 from Windows XP as that would make our lives a lot easier.
Sure thing, it’s shame to web ppl. But IE9 uses and updates core APIs. Even using IE8 on XP isn’t optimal, as the security features are not there. Nothing lasts forever, it’s not viable to Microsoft update XP. You could compare that to Apple and Tiger.
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Re: Firefox 4.0rc1
jakob wrote:
Joe, check out the firebug site for the most recent beta – it works better than ever with firefox 4.
Excellent! thanks for the tip, Jakob.
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Re: Firefox 4.0rc1
Personally I’m more interested in Gecko 2, and parser changes than the performance, tho.
Ypu’re right, for us that is particularly interesting!
Nothing lasts forever, it’s not viable to Microsoft update XP. You could compare that to Apple and Tiger.
Sure, I understand that it’s not viable in economic terms for Microsoft – or desirable for that matter: I’m sure they don’t want to give anyone a reason to stick with it – but it is not as if it is impossible to run a better browser engine on XP as Firefox 4 shows.
But there is a significant difference when it comes to usage. Given that Windows XP is still going to be supported until 2020 (source) and that it apparently still has a 74% market share (Windows XP is still 60% of all windows installations and windows is some 85-90% of the entire market) that’s one hell of a lot of users who will not benefit from the web support offered by IE9. Instead, they will have to consciously switch to Firefox or Chrome but given that fewer people use IE7 than IE6, I expect more change is likely to come about as a result of people replacing their computers than the average user switching to a different or newer browser. According to an article on arstechnica from last november IE6 still has a market share of 15% but the visitor stats on several sites I look after show a higher proportion. (found some more recent stats here).
In practical terms it’s also the single most common ‘negative’ feedback I receive from website owners that “something or other doesn’t work properly in IE6” or “doesn’t look like it does in another browser”. Of course I can explain why, but some clients are not really interested in hearing that.
BTW: you are right in that OS-X Tiger only runs Safari 4 and not Safari 5, but Safari 4 is already a way better browser than IE6 or IE7 and it’s market share overall (according to this page) is just 0.37%.
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#8 2011-03-11 10:18:25
- Algaris
- Member
- From: England
- Registered: 2006-01-27
- Posts: 548
Re: Firefox 4.0rc1
Just point those people to this website: http://ie6countdown.com/ Even Microsoft are trying to kill off IE6 now.
http://ie6countdown.com/educate-others.html
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Re: Firefox 4.0rc1
jakob wrote:
Given that Windows XP is still going to be supported until 2020 (source) and that it apparently still has a 74% market share (Windows XP is still 60% of all windows installations and windows is some 85-90% of the entire market) that’s one hell of a lot of users who will not benefit from the web support offered by IE9. Instead, they will have to consciously switch to Firefox or Chrome but given that fewer people use IE7 than IE6, I expect more change is likely to come about as a result of people replacing their computers than the average user switching to a different or newer browser.
Had my Windows XP laptop, which is over 5 years old, not showed it’s age and kept up with me, I would still be running XP. Now I’m on Windows 7, since it was installed on the computer I bought, but I’d rather be back on XP. I think Windows 7 is nice, runs really good and I’ve had no issues with it, but I was accustomed to XP.
So I don’t think we’ll get XP users to make the switch to Windows 7, because like me, they must be satisfied and have no reason to upgrade. Also keep in mind that most XP machines will have a hard time running Windows 7, they’d probably be better off going the Ubuntu route if they don’t want to upgrade ram and peripherals.
At least I do my part for the cause, every machine I get my hands on, I install Firefox.
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Re: Firefox 4.0rc1
Firefox 4 Gets March 22 Public Release Date
Interesting to see how it will do against the most modern browser there is provided you don’t care about HTML5 Form Validation.
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Re: Firefox 4.0rc1
michaelkpate wrote:
Interesting to see how it will do against the most modern browser there is …
I installed IE9 a couple of days ago, a big departure for them in terms of user interface, actually it seems we’re all mimicking Chrome.
IE9 is fast, at least on all the tests I ran in it, but Firefox 4 is just as fast also. Never quite liked Chrome, especially it installing itself into the My Documents folder, and yes I know we can get around that, but nevertheless it turned me off. Actually, for testing things, when I need to be the end user and not be signed on to things, I prefer Opera.
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Re: Firefox 4.0rc1
hcgtv wrote:
Never quite liked Chrome
IE9 is never going to be my main browser simply because where I work all of the staff are running XP and there are no plans to change that anytime soon. And since I tend to use multiple computers, the syncing capability of Chrome has been extremely useful for me.
But perhaps my biggest disappointment with Android is the fact that the browser is not Chrome. That is going to make the synergy between Firefox 4 and the Firefox Mobile (still in beta) very interesting.
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