Experiences with Firefox 4.0?

[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]

Originally Posted by subyroo

I missed the Backward Forward History Dropdown 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.