Firefox 4 thoughts and impressions so far?

[DarrellS]

I plugged in the thumb drive and loaded the portable version and to my surprise, it looked nothing like it did on my XP machine (or his XP machine for that matter) and looked exactly like the one that I had uninstalled from the Windows 7 machine. After digging through the drop down menu that says Firefox (which is the only thing that was on the toolbar in Windows 7), I found the option to add toolbars and by adding the menu bar was able to get it to look like it does in XP.

Not sure what caused it to show no tool bars at all.

[Seeker47]

The Greasemonkey script for YouTube HD Suite has been updated for FF4. Now if the Tabkiller plugin would get updated, I'd reinstall it. I'm running the portable version right now. It is so much faster than FF 3.6 and IE but every time I go to open a page in a new window, I end up opening a new tab, even though I have tabbed browsing turned off.

I'll use the portable version to download large files and use 3.6 to browse with. My download speeds today with 3.6 and IE were under 10 mbps and as high as 19 mbps with FF4. What is weird is my download speeds in IE used to be around 20 mbps. I don't know what has happened to kill my download speeds in IE and FF 3.6.

I'm returning to this thread, because I'm quite confused by the version numbering scheme I'm seeing for FF, particularly the portable incarnations: Ver. 4, ver. 5, ver. 6, ver. 7 (or later), with various Alphas or Betas associated. Ver. 4.x is still the official regular version ? Or is it ? How do they manage to get off on so many tangents and get ahead of themselves this way ?

I'd like to find one -- portable, particularly -- that is relatively stable, does not lose compatibility with too many of the established add-ons, and has ways of rolling back the look & feel (UI) of the program to the 3.6.x days. But that's probably a pipe dream . . . ?

I'm still using 3.6.18 day in and day out, and am too comfortable with it to change easily.

[intracube]

I'm returning to this thread, because I'm quite confused by the version numbering scheme I'm seeing for FF, particularly the portable incarnations: Ver. 4, ver. 5, ver. 6, ver. 7 (or later), with various Alphas or Betas associated. Ver. 4.x is still the official regular version ? Or is it ? How do they manage to get off on so many tangents and get ahead of themselves this way ?

I think the portable versions of FF follow the same release numbering system as the standard FF.

Since FF4, they've made the decision to release updates more regularly, and on top of that change the numbering system for releases. What would have been considered a small update a few years ago, for example FF 3.6.14 to 3.6.15, might now be a major number change from 5.0.1 to 6.*.

The new numbering system is a gimmick, IMO. I'm running FF 5.0.1, and it could have easily been released as FF 4.something.

Comments on this thread echo my views:
http://support.mozilla.com/en-US/questions/822764#answer-184326
Particularly;
"Firefox 5.0 will be more like a minor major release as if it was a Firefox 4.1 release and perhaps a improved 4.0.*"

"It seems like Mozilla is mixing up "rapid release cycle" with "major upgrade release". A rapid release cycle doesn't require a major upgrade every cycle. It would just be nice to have rapid *minor* releases within the major version number, then upgrade the major version number every year or so. This seems like more of a marketing ploy than anything, and it's messing with web development compatibility."

Also this:
http://news.cnet.com/8301-30685_3-20072903-264/mozilla-releases-firefox-5-first-rapid-...lease-version/
""The world of the Internet is moving at a faster pace than ever, so we realized we had to start innovating faster," said Mozilla Chief Executive Gary Kovacs in an online chat today to announce the product."

Urgh.

I'd like to find one -- portable, particularly -- that is relatively stable, does not lose compatibility with too many of the established add-ons, and has ways of rolling back the look & feel (UI) of the program to the 3.6.x days. But that's probably a pipe dream . . . ?

I can't say I've had any problem with 5.0.1. The addons I use work with it, and the UI hasn't changed much at all. I'm using the Linux version, BTW.

I'm still using 3.6.18 day in and day out, and am too comfortable with it to change easily.

What are the changes in later versions of FF that you don't like?

[pepegot1]

Why are you using FF 4 when FF 5 is out? Also, look into Mozbackup software to protect your FF profile and restore if a problem developes.

[Bix]

I highly recommend the "Aurora" builds of Firefox 7. Memory issues finally fixed for the most part. It's made me fall in love with Firefox all over again.

[Seeker47]

What are the changes in later versions of FF that you don't like?

I haven't logged enough use with the later ones to fully answer that yet (I've installed portable "5.0.1", and after a following post below just picked up "7.0.2a" of Aurora, even though I have generally steered clear of alpha or beta software), but right out of the gate I don't like the new UI. Basically, I want to stick to the look and feel of 3.6. A quick look around at Add-On Central turned up some Classic Themes, one or another of which may restore the horizontal toolbar array I'm more comfortable with. And perhaps there are some other extensions or tweaks that will restore other aspects of the older UI that I prefer, much as that "Auto-Export Bookmarks as HTML" mod gave v. 3 something I really wanted from earlier versions. But I will need to uncover all this, as I get around to it.

One thing I will need to do is to recall or retrace what needs to be done -- in About:Config, most likely -- in order to have a later version use my existing profile(s) and other resources. I want to minimize any chances of the later versions corrupting the 3.6 profiles or extensions, so I just installed Mozbackup 1.5.1. (Prior to that, I was zipping up the Profile trees manually, though not often enough for keeping them entirely up to date.) I realize that some things are bound not to work in the later versions. In the interim, the main thing I'm concerned with is not messing up the installed 3.6 that I still depend upon. Yesterday, the Back arrow suddenly stopped working amidst pages of Google search hits -- it kept returning to "Page 1", even if I was up to Page 9. That sort of rang a bell about some issue with the Back function I had read about online, for portable 5.0.1. I'm fine on experimenting with these later versions -- preferably as portables -- but I'm adamant about avoiding any "cross-contamination" type problems. And, in theory, that should be far less likely with something that is truly portable and self-contained. The joker in this pack might be the Profile linkage . . . but I haven't tried that YET.

Maybe the safest thing to do is to clone those Profiles, and let them have a separate existence with the later portable versions ?

Thanks for shedding some light on that version numbering business, which seems like a runaway train to me.