Experiences with Firefox 4.0?

[Feline]

Was a tad irritated when Firefox suddenly announced it was loading FF 4.0 - I prefer to download new versions myself and load when it suits me (somehow - ??? - version 3.6.13 reset itself to automatically download updates).

While the new interface is an improvement, performance certainly is not improved (like it's using at least double the amount of memory). It's running on a netbook so there isn't a huge amount of memory (2Gb) and performance really sucked.

Also, there appears to be no way that you can save multiple tabs when shutting version 4.0 down. Took appreciable time to open up required five tabs.

Cutting a long story short - have removed version 4.0 and reverted back to version 3.6.13 - Big thumbs down from a long-term user. Even considered moving to IE9 (but it isn't available for Win XP).

Any other experiences?:sad:

[BOAC]

Like you I dropped 4 and am back on 3.6.16 but that occasionally locks/slows up my 'puter and uses loads of memory. I guess it is a lesson in how to turn a good idea into bad.

[Parapunter]

You can disable automatic updates in the FF tools/options/updates tab.

[Feline]

PP - I had disabled automatic updates - but somewhow it re-enabled itself --- hence my tad irritation...

[Parapunter]

I see. Perhaps it overrides that for new versions.

[Mac the Knife]

I like the new interface.

No problems with performance.

Generally positive

(the latest Opera is brilliant too...)

Mac

[green granite]

Also, there appears to be no way that you can save multiple tabs when shutting version 4.0 down. Took appreciable time to open up required five tabs.

Options>general>startup the bottom item in the drop down menu. It will then start where you left off.

As far as I'm concerned it's a great improvement on V3.6xxx, much faster, more stable and less of a ram hog. But there again I'm running it on W7 which it's optimised for, not XP.

[Booglebox]

I found FF4 a bit unpolished and generally not too good.

I use Chrome which IMHO is light years ahead of anything else at the moment. Somehow they managed to make it extremely simple yet with loads of features :cool:

[Loose rivets]

I happily went to .16, and have been complaining recently about the general lack of briskness. I confess, FF was the last thing I suspected.

Maybe a trip back to .13 for a trial period.

[Saab Dastard]

I've been using FF4 since the beta started, and I've been very happy with it (there's a thread on here if you want to dig it out).

Functionally superior to FF3.x and IE8 - I really miss it when I'm working on other PCs.

Once I've finished upgrading to Win7x64, all my PCs will be running it (32-bit, though, as Mozilla haven't got there yet with a 64-bit version).

SD

[samusi01]

Been running FF4 for a couple days now - generally OK, haven't had any bad experiences yet but thinking about heading back to Chrome as the primary browser.
So far, Chrome seems to have given the best overall experience on my PC - it may be slightly faster than the others, of which I have installed all the major browsers - but the user experience is generally speaking the best.

[mike-wsm]

FF4 takes a bit of getting used to, the oft-used Home and Refresh are in different places to make them more compact. One minor niggle is on one of my email accounts it won't do Advanced mode for a POP email. Not major, but another forced re-learning experience. Some other features like the thinks bubble for Remember Password are quite nice. Go with the flow, I guess.

[Load Toad]

It'll pretty much depend what you do with them. So far FF4 is working very well and fast for me, I also like Chrome which is fast (I tend to run Chrome with no add ons at all for speed and FF with add ons that I like to use for work &c). IE I find terribly slow & clunnk & I only use it where I have too - s9ome sites prefer it)

Benchmark battle: Chrome vs. IE vs. Firefox | The Download Blog - Download.com (http://download.cnet.com/8301-2007_4-20047314-12.html)

[fieldsnail]

Loaded FF4 a couple of days ago - it seemed OK but today when I tried my on-line bank I had some difficulties.

Essentially the bank likes me to have RAPPORT loaded and I did this successfully under FF3.x. It was still loaded (I assumed) when I changed to FF4 but as I opened the bank web pages the message that they suggest I load RAPPORT for better security appeared.

I ignored the message and continued without it but the login process seemed to hang. I tried again and this time took their suggestion and 'loaded' RAPPORT.

RAPPORT then of course informed me it was already on my machine (and I had checked that by logging into my bank successfully using IE as a further test) and did I simply want to update. I did so.

With RAPPORT updated I tried FF4 again - same message from my bank!

Reverted to FF3.x

[vulcanised]

Personally, I would have dumped RAPPORT.

Not that I would have installed it in the first place.

[Gizmo1]

Adblock Plus is a great add-on for Firefox 4. Gets rid of all those annoying ads on websites. Works really well.:ok:

[The Nr Fairy]

I've used FF4 on Mac OS 10.6. Given up on it - pretty nice, quick, but a couple of times it has hung - a "Cmd-Alt-Esc then kill" type hang. Can't do with that.

[Keef]

I just installed it on my laptop, and apart from having to turn the toolbars back on, it seems OK. Stuff is in different places but it makes for a more compact "screentop" so I'm not complaining.

BIG problem is that there isn't a LogMeIn version for it, so I can't connect back to the home PC from the laptop. So far, I haven't needed to - but I hope they get that sorted PDQ.

The desktop is still on 3.6.13 but it's under dustcovers and surrounded by builders at the mo. I'll decide whether or not to update it after a day or two with FF4 on this.

[Jhieminga]

Pretty happy with FF4 so far. The bookmarks at the RH side of the bookmarks toolbar is a feature I like a lot. Everything running smoothly on two XP systems.

[subyroo]

I missed the Backward Forward History Dropdown (https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/backforedrop/) arrow in FF4 but found an add-on to restore it, now I'm happy again.

FF4's new GUI takes a bit of used too but runs just fine once you get it setup to the way you like it to be and you know where to look for everything.

[rgbrock1]

Like so many "improvements" or "enhancements" to software these days Firefox 4 has become bloatware. It uses a huge amount of RAM (memory) even when running on Linux, let alone Windows and it is slow and I suspect suffers from some memory leaks.
I've been a long-time Firefox user but I am not at all impressed with the latest out of mozilla.

[AnthonyGA]

All software becomes bloated eventually, as developers must find increasingly useless things to add in order to justify new versions of the software.

The computer industry takes for granted that all software must be updated all the time. The notion of a product that works just fine and doesn't have to change never enters anyone's head. And users are hypnotized into believing the same thing. I have to wonder if the industry is ever going to change. I'm glad that most other industries (including aviation) don't work this way.

I installed Firefox 4 on some machines at work to test it. It was not an improvement, but it didn't seem to break anything, either. Eventually I installed it at home. It uses a ton of memory (more than half a gigabyte, although most of it is paged), and starts multiple processes (but so did Firefox 3.x—all those "plugin-container.exe" processes). Other browsers do the same. They are all bloated these days. I didn't seem to lose anything with Firefox 4, but I didn't gain anything either. I see no performance improvement.

The user interface has changed again, which is inevitable when software is written and updated by unpaid teenagers. The changes were unwarranted and further conflicted with Windows UI standards. The hourglass disappeared ages ago and the kiddies refuse to put it back; it's still missing in Firefox 4.

I only use Firefox because the alternative (MSIE) is worse. Other browsers like Opera and Chrome aren't even in the running.

All in all, a non-event. Like all such non-events, it requires more resources to run.

[Jumeirah James]

Hi,

I tried it for a few days, but went back to FF 3.1.6. My Addons work and the interface suits me better. The toolbar kept dumping my changes which p*ssed me off no end. I always upgrade my software, but this time i changed my mind. Hope it helps

[herman the crab]

Can't seem to get FoxClocks to run on it :(

HTC

[Jhieminga]

I missed the Backward Forward History Dropdown (https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/backforedrop/) arrow in FF4 but found an add-on to restore it, now I'm happy again.
The trick is to click on the 'Back' button but keep the button pressed down (long click). That gives you the same listing that the little arrow button used to provide. Works with 'Forward' as well.