Firefox 4 thoughts and impressions so far?

[aedipuss]

ff4 with download helper gives me the original names.

[DarrellS]

ff4 with download helper gives me the original names.

What does Download Helper do? Replace RMC?

[tcory]

I thought FF4 was still in RC releases? Huh. I'll have to go check.

It seems pretty nice. I like the larger screen without that bar at the bottom - even though it was small it still took up room.

I'm not at a system with FF3 installed, so I'll have to check this, too... but couldn't you have just turned the status bar off in the View (> Show >) menu, or used full-screen mode? I prefer to have the status bar visible, anyway.

You right... click View and un check Status Bar. I like the status bar too..

[Kerry56]

Its taken a lot of fiddling, but I've got FF4 looking quite a bit like the previous version (the way I liked it). Hardest part was figuring out how to get the blasted bookmark button off the bar on the right and placed over to the left. If you want to do this, right click on the bookmark button, hit customize, then drag it to the customize toolbar pop up window. Hit done. Then right click again on the bookmark toolbar and customize it, this time dragging the bookmark button to the left side.

There was another bookmark button already in the options, but it created a sidebar, which I despise.

[Noahtuck]

I like it so far but it really pisses me off when they change stupid little things that do NOT need to be changed!!



They swapped the position of "open link in new tab" & "open link in new window"

What really makes it better by changing that ??
Besides annoying me ?

I am used to just clicking without even really looking and i keep hitting the 2nd one down and opening new windows instead of new a tab

[El Heggunte]

They swapped the position of "open link in new tab" & "open link in new window"

What really makes it better by changing that ??
Besides annoying me ?

Come on, they are just trying to convince us all that...

... rewriting and recompiling the source-code is fun.

[Noahtuck]

OMG!!!

I am telling you what!!!!

I have done it like 30 more times since i posted that!!!!

As soon as i do it i realize it and just growl!!!!!!!




It's like some little dork working on it said, lets change something by one line just to screw with everyone after they have become used to it for the last year + !!!

[yoda313]

As soon as i do it i realize it and just growl!!!!!!!

Well since this is my thread originally I'll go offtopic.

You a trekker noahtuck? Ever see Star Trek The Motion Picture? There is a scene when McCoy first re-joins the crew on the Enterprise and complains that he figures sickbay was all rearranged. "I know engineers, they love to change things".

Seemed appropriate for your situation

[Noahtuck]

LOL!!!

Yeah i remember that scene!!

I'm not really a trekkie, but i do own all seasons of all original star trek shows, TNG, Voyager, DS9, & all the movies

[yoda313]

@noahtuck - well glad I could get you to laugh

I'm not really a trekkie, but i do own all seasons of all original star trek shows, TNG, Voyager, DS9, & all the movies

Not really a trekkie huh? Just a hoarder like me huh?

I have all the movies on bluray (all 11). I have archived just about every episode over the years. I've seen virtually all of them so I know most of the stories - tng best of all.

I don't have any of Enterprise. Never could get into that series.

[Noahtuck]

Yeah i never even remotely thought i would like enterprise from what little i saw of it.

I like ST but i am more of a Babylon 5, SG1, Atlantis, SGU person

Hoarder ?
I am waaaay beyond hoarder when it comes to my dvd collection!!!
LOL!!!

[DarrellS]

I like it so far but it really pisses me off when they change stupid little things that do NOT need to be changed!!


[Attachment 6176 - Click to enlarge]

They swapped the position of "open link in new tab" & "open link in new window"

What really makes it better by changing that ??
Besides annoying me ?

I am used to just clicking without even really looking and i keep hitting the 2nd one down and opening new windows instead of new a tab

I had gotten rid of the "open link in new tab" with Menu Editor addon and "open all in tabs" with this code saved as userChrome.css in C:\Documents and Settings\Darrell\Application Data\Mozilla\Firefox\Profiles\da5cp8wb.default\chr ome...

.openintabs-menuseparator,
.openintabs-menuitem
{
display: none !important;
}

But they're not working anymore.

I'm tempted to go back to 3.6 until everyone updates their addons. If the Tabkiller guy would update his addon, all my problems would be solved. It's been in BETA for eight months so I don't know why there are so many issues with addons.

[Slowburn]

Google Maps page loads, but shows loading error. Mouse clicks do nothing. Works in IE and previous version of Firefox.

http://maps.google.com/

Anyone else?

[Kerry56]

Google maps is working properly for me in Firefox 4. No issues at all.

[SLK001]

I'm tempted to go back to 3.6 until everyone updates their addons. If the Tabkiller guy would update his addon, all my problems would be solved. It's been in BETA for eight months so I don't know why there are so many issues with addons.

Why do you need Tabkiller? There is now a "Tabs" section in Tools/Options where you can turn all of the tab functions off. I HATE tabs and I will go to extreme lengths to get rid of the MFers.

My only major beef with FF4 is also with the ADD-ONs. The developer of my most important addon, "URL Security" has given up chasing FF versions to upgrade his addon anymore, and so this addon will not be available anymore beyond FF4.

I, too, liked the status bar. There isn't even an option to turn it on anymore (and the ADD-ON Bar is NOT the status bar). I liked being able to mouse over an embedded URL to see where exactly it was going to send me. The status bar may be gone, but this info still pops up in a "Status Bar Popup".

One nice thing that I have found (not really FF4 related) is Calomel SSL Validation addon. It has an "annoyances" section where you can TURN OFF things like flashing text and animated GIFs. This allows me to turn off animated avatars, like Noahtuck's. My firewall software used to do this, but I had to uninstall it, since KAV no longer would try to "play nice" with it.

[Seeker47]

Misc. Replies:
=== =====

Google Maps page loads, but shows loading error. Mouse clicks do nothing. Works in IE and previous version of Firefox.

http://maps.google.com/

Anyone else?

Almost all of my replay media catcher recordings have generic file names (8D3F7A54_videoplayback.mp4) from Youtube and VEVO when using Firefox 4. They all have their original file names when recorded using Internet Explorer. Usually if I got a generic file name, I could copy the file name from the url in the properties window but it's not showing it there either.
. . .
What does Download Helper do? Replace RMC?

There are still some things that seem to be IE-specific. Recently, the ORON fileshare service became unusable, even with FF-3. It keeps redirecting to various foreign language versions of the site, and won't do anything else. But IE still works with it.

(I gave up on Opera quite some time ago.)

Download Helper is supposed to be more like a replacement for Orbit. But I was never really comfortable or pleased with the design of DH, so for me it's still Orbit, and then Coojah / Blader for the stuff that Orbit can not get. Orbit was always far more capable than DH, in my experience.

Its taken a lot of fiddling, but I've got FF4 looking quite a bit like the previous version (the way I liked it).

I like it so far but it really pisses me off when they change stupid little things that do NOT need to be changed!!

The beauty of FF has been its near-infinite options for customization, and the vast library of Extensions to accomplish that. Assuming this continues -- and why wouldn't it -- there will in due course be Themes or Add-Ons & Greasemonkey-type scripts to regress any UI features you object to back to way you preferred it. Probably just a matter of some patience. In FF-3, I wasn't too keen on the way they went to the SQL database for Bookmarks (and other things), but then I found instructions on how to change this behavior for v. 3 at

http://www.lytebyte.com/2008/06/19/how-to-auto-export-firefox-3-bookmarks-to-bookmarkshtml/

and after that I had the advantages of both. The FF community is rife with people who like to have things their way, and quite a few of them seem to have the skills to make this happen.

[Poppa_Meth]

For anyone who is interested:
http://www.tweakguides.com/Firefox_1.html

Quite an extensive guide to tweaking FF4.

[Noahtuck]

Now when i close my browser it won't let me save when i have multiple tabs open

I may be going back to the last version

I have not found anything about saving all your tabs when you close the browser....

[Poppa_Meth]

In the address bar type-

about:config and press enter

in filter box type-

browser.showQuitWarning

Change that to True by double clicking the line. Restart Firefox and it should now prompt to save your tabs.

[Noahtuck]

Cool thanks!!

Where did you find that at ?
I scanned through that link you posted earlier but there was so much stuff i gave up after awhile.

It actually let me save them when i went to close the browser right after doing it.

The warning it gives you when you go into it is pretty funny.....

This might void your warranty!

LOL!!

[RabidDog]

'So kay.

[Poppa_Meth]

It's in the last couple of pages that covers all the tweaks you can do in about:config.

If you read the first part of the guide, he recommends doing a complete uninstall of FF3 and installing FF4 fresh to avoid problems that could arise from old customizations and settings. Personally, I didn't do that, but I've be very careful about what I do to Firefox in the past.

[intracube]

Google Maps page loads, but shows loading error. Mouse clicks do nothing. Works in IE and previous version of Firefox.
http://maps.google.com/
Anyone else?

Works fine here - FF4 (linux)

One nice thing that I have found (not really FF4 related) is Calomel SSL Validation addon. It has an "annoyances" section where you can TURN OFF things like flashing text and animated GIFs. This allows me to turn off animated avatars, like Noahtuck's.

It's possible to disable animated gifs without installing addons. Pressing the 'ESC' key will pause any gifs on a specific page. To make the change permanent:
http://blog.ffextensionguru.com/2007/10/30/tip-pauserestrictdisable-animated-gifs/

There's a note which says the setting doesn't seem to work with later versions of FF2 and FF3 - but it works ok for me on FF4.

The warning it gives you when you go into it is pretty funny.....

This might void your warranty!

LOL!!

When you access about:config?

I get a completely different message;

Here be dragons!
Changing these advanced settings can be harmful to the stability, security, and performance of this application. You should only continue if you are sure of what you are doing.

I have to click a 'I'll be careful, I promise!' button to continue.

[Calidore]

As soon as i do it i realize it and just growl!!!!!!!

Well since this is my thread originally I'll go offtopic.

You a trekker noahtuck? Ever see Star Trek The Motion Picture? There is a scene when McCoy first re-joins the crew on the Enterprise and complains that he figures sickbay was all rearranged. "I know engineers, they love to change things".

Seemed appropriate for your situation

Steven Wright had a joke about coming back to his apartment and finding that someone had broken in and replaced everything with an exact duplicate.

[Noahtuck]

I get a completely different message;

Here be dragons!
Changing these advanced settings can be harmful to the stability, security, and performance of this application. You should only continue if you are sure of what you are doing.

I have to click a 'I'll be careful, I promise!' button to continue.

I closed my browser and restarted my PC tonight and when i checked again it still say's the same thing, except the "dragon" part.

I wonder what determines what message it gives you.

[El Heggunte]

This might void your warranty!

Oh, really?

That's very-very weird,
considering most F.O.S.S. typically stress the "NO WARRANTIES" part.

Sadly it seems no "old-school" programmer is managing the various Mozilla projects.

I have to click a 'I'll be careful, I promise!' button to continue.

I'd rather see a "Don't show any stupid warning messages again" checkbox.

[Poppa_Meth]

It could just be the localization determining the message. I noticed you are in England and we are getting the other message in the US.

There is also a box you can uncheck and not have to deal with the warning next time.

[DarrellS]

I'm tempted to go back to 3.6 until everyone updates their addons. If the Tabkiller guy would update his addon, all my problems would be solved. It's been in BETA for eight months so I don't know why there are so many issues with addons.

Why do you need Tabkiller? There is now a "Tabs" section in Tools/Options where you can turn all of the tab functions off. I HATE tabs and I will go to extreme lengths to get rid of the MFers.

You could turn off tabs with the older versions also but you still have the "open in tabs" in the dropdown menu and "open all in tabs" which you accidently click when you're in a hurry. With Tabkiller, you didn't have to worry because it killed all tabbed browsing.

With the Menu Editor and the user script that I found, it was working for those two items but it stopped working. It does seem to work on links on webpages but not on the bookmarks dropdown menu.

[Seeker47]

Where did you find that at ?
I scanned through that link you posted earlier but there was so much stuff i gave up after awhile.

It's in the last couple of pages that covers all the tweaks you can do in about:config.

I think one can do keyword searches inside of about:config. And very likely inside that long list of tweaks that you linked.

If you read the first part of the guide, he recommends doing a complete uninstall of FF3 and installing FF4 fresh to avoid problems that could arise from old customizations and settings. Personally, I didn't do that, but I've be very careful about what I do to Firefox in the past.

I'm hoping that the portable FF4 won't have any collisions or bad interactions with the installed FF3 -- including customizations and settings -- when I try out the new version. One might reasonably expect that any portable app would be fully self-contained . . . but then, most apps don't have Profiles that establish a unique set of rules, per each user.

In any case, once you have FF stable and more or less the way you want it, it is a good idea to back up your Profile(s) &/or user chrome (or wherever your installed customizations and settings reside now), as insurance against going off the rails with further tinkering.

[usually_quiet]

The new Firefox 4 is fine. I have had no difficulty with it. I don't use many addons, and haven't had any problems there yet with Firefox. ...but for good measure, I upgraded from IE8 to IE9 as well, and had a problem related to Firefox addons I installed some time ago.

I don't use IE often, but once in a while I run into a situation where Chrome and Firefox don't display a website correctly. I tested IE9 here at VideoHelp and found I could not reply to threads anymore. The text box where we type replies wouldn't register mouse events or keyboard input. I disabled some addons I installed for Firefox that were useful for importing information from webpages into one program that I use. Now IE9 is working as it should here. I guess IE9 now tries to use any Firefox addons it finds.

[Edit]I spoke too soon. IE9 only accepts keyboard input and mouse events sporadically when I'm typing here.