RSSFirefox 3.0 Beta 4 released, this time for real
By Scott M. Fulton, III | Published March 11, 2008, 11:34 AM
A few days after an unusual false start, during which testers at a virtual worldwide party made do with a release candidate, Mozilla gives the public its next taste of what's coming in Firefox.
BetaNews FileForum has posted Firefox 3.0 Beta 4 this morning, and the good news is, it's still there.
Last week, the link went live for Beta 4, but FileForum users and testers immediately noticed upon installation the prominent message, "This is not Firefox 3.0 Beta 4." It was a version of the message Mozilla typically posts as the default newcomer's page for release candidate installations; and in Mozilla's testing procedure, there are "private" RCs prior to the release of public betas.
That RC happened to be surprisingly stable in BetaNews tests, and thus far this morning, the real Beta 4 is showing off its skills remarkably well -- though we've yet to put it through its full paces. In an effort to give the browser something more of an IE7 "trademark" appearance, new testers will be surprised to find the extra large Back button within an inset, beveled housing, in the new default theme. The Home button, meanwhile, has moved to the left side of the Bookmarks Toolbar, though it is not a shortcut like the other entries there, and cannot (easily) be removed (UPDATE unless you pose the problem to one of our own readers...see our comments below).
In BetaNews testing, Beta 4 passed the Acid2 test from the Web Standards Project splendidly and quickly, with no obvious errors. Of course, last week, the WSP raised the bar on standards compliance with its Acid3 test, for which our Beta 4 scored a 67/100. (You can tell Beta 4 wasn't perfect in this picture, because the queued-up boxes should be in color.) That score is actually quite impressive, and the highest we've seen from Mozilla since Acid3's release...especially compared with IE8 Beta 1, which scored for us a measly 17/100.
BetaNews' test environment is Windows Vista Ultimate running in a Microsoft Virtual PC environment, on a Windows XP-based PC with an Intel Core 2 Duo processor.
One new feature we noted for Beta 4 right away is full zoom, which is a big step up from the "Text Size" menu in Firefox 2. This feature is not only capable of stepping up or down text size in magnification increments of 10%, but scaling graphics to fit as well. The graphics scaling also appears to work perfectly for Flash-based ads and Flash videos, whose frames scale up to match the current frame resolution.
IE8 Beta 1 also boasts a similar feature, and we've noted that Firefox 3 Beta 4 omits the "thumb" slider along the bottom for live scaling. Firefox's status bar is often reserved for use by its add-ons, though for now, fairly quick scaling can be achieved by pressing Ctrl-+ and Ctrl-[minus].
Just a note to the BetaNews staff...
The featured article (this article) on the main page links to admin.betanews.com, returning a 404 error to us common folk.
A correction may be in order.
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|I'm not an Opera fanboy, but I'm rather surprised that FF has taken so long to copy the zoom feature in Opera so that text and graphics both get rescaled together.
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|Opera is still WAY WAY faster.
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|Opera is not way faster. This version of firefox is the fastest browser i have tested. Seamonkey Second. Opera third.
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|You are WAY WAY delusional... no offense.
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|Earth to Diam0nd.....think you might want to come back down to us yet??
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|I dunno about actual speed, but Opera does still have a negligibly smaller memory footprint. Was the only thing I liked Opera for, now Firefox has extremely low memory use too.
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|Extremely fast on Vista Ultimate. It's hands down the fastest browser I've used.
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|great improvement from the last beta version.. it's faster and all that but i still have rendering issues on some site.. for example on hi5 the photo gallery of the users is not always displayed correctly and in some forums the quick reply text field doesn't work...
other problems that i had with all the beta series is image click on deviantart.com which doesn't always work... most of the times i have to click on an empty space near the image thumbnail and the click on it to work...
hope they'll fix these in the final version!
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|BIG improvement over beta3. Noticeably faster, and closes cleanly for me every time. Been using it most of the day on my windows machine. Haven't tried the Linux beta yet.
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|If only FF3 closed bold tags for web developers/article writers
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|WOW! I'm blown away at how frightening fast Firefox 3 Beta 4 is on a Mac!!! After typing about:config in the address bar and changing 5 values, Firefox is hands down without debate the fastest browser on a Mac. Even faster than the nightly builds of webkit which has proven to be significantly faster than the current version of Safari 3. Pages that I visit for the first time after cleaning out my cache and cookies render as if they're already in my cache!
Looks like Steve Jobs is in for some serious competition from Firefox and can no longer boast Safari 3 as the fastest browser on any platform unless he is strictly talking about default settings only. I can't wait for the final release!
Anybody who has not had this experience on an Intel Mac should seriously consider cleaning their system or upgrading their hard drives and memory. Because something is wrong.
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|Which settings did you change?
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|I thought the same thing about Beta 4 running on Linux. Firefox 2 was fast but this beta of Firefox 3 is blazing fast by comparison. Haven't got to tweaking it yet, really don't see the need to since it is so much faster than it's predecessor.
Looks like Steve will have to change that boast to the second fastest browser on any platform as it seems to me that Firefox 3 is shaping up to be the fastest browser on all 3 platforms.
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|Type about:config in the address bar and press enter. In the Filter bar type network. Scroll down until you see "network.http.max-connections" and change the value to 50 by double clicking on it. If you are on a high speed connection that is less than 6Mbps, I would suggest 20. Now change the next three settings underneath this setting to the same number as well.
Double click on the next setting which will change it from "false" to "true". Underneath that setting is one more which also needs to be changed to the same number as the other values that you changed.
Proceed as usual and you will notice a blazing difference in Firefox 3 Beta 4. This is 10 times better than the Fasterfox extension. I have used these values for years on both a PC and Now a far superior Mac with no problems whatsoever. You can also find similar recommendations at both MetaCafe, StumbleUpon and YouTube.
If you're on a dialup connection disregard the above, move out of the hill billy community to a new community that offers a high speed connection, then apply the above.
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|True that. I remember watching his keynote address a while back where he boasted about Safari's speed and how it will eventually overtake Firefox's market share which didn't make the CEO of Mozilla too happy.:) Perhaps this is Mozilla's unadvertised way of shutting Steve's mouth and creating one browser to rule them all. Not even Opera's new Kestrel browser is faster. And I've tweaked Opera's setting to be faster as well and it is still noticeably a step slower.
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|"IE8 Beta 1 also boasts a similar feature, and we've noted that Firefox 3 Beta 4 omits the "thumb" slider along the bottom for live scaling. Firefox's status bar is often reserved for use by its add-ons, though for now, fairly quick scaling can be achieved by pressing Ctrl-+ and Ctrl-[minus]."
For everything you WISH Firefox could do, there is an extension.
https://addons.mozilla.o...n-US/firefox/addon/6489
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|Ctrl + mouse wheel is even faster maybe, don't have to take your hand off the mouse.
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|lol once again, end the tag!
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|Greatest browser ever, but now Firefox 4 Alpha 1 is out.
http://www.9down.com/Moz...x-4-0-Alpha-1-Pre-23011/
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|OMGZ HOW 1337 I MUST HAVEZ0R IT!!!!!
Well, not really, still waiting for all my fav plugins to make it Ff3.
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|Man, unless you're running FireFox Alpha Nightly (only under a full Moon) 10pre, you've got nothing.
Everyone knows that.
looser.
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|"The Home button, meanwhile, has moved to the left side of the Bookmarks Toolbar, though it is not a shortcut like the other entries there, and cannot (easily) be removed."
Can't be easily removed...?
Right-click > Customize > Drag Home button into Customize window
Not extremely difficult...
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|LOL. Probably difficult for the reviewer (laugh)
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|Well...okay. Didn't come to me at first glance, but you're right, and thanks anyway.
-SF3
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|Hmm I can see how it might be confusing to some users (it looks like a bookmark!) and I even thought it was a bookmark when I first saw it.
Perhaps they should make it a special-case bookmark (about:home?) and put that in the bookmark toolbar instead of using the home button itself.
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|Even less difficult if you're 'upgrading' from a previous installation (even though though the installer defaults to a different directory).
I had every intention of performing a clean installation to have an objective opinion of what was different between the two versions as far as default settings go, but I got excited and impatient.
3.0b4 kept my customized toolbar settings from 2.0.0.12... new tab, print, downloads progress, etc. It also seamlessly integrated previously installed extensions (for the time being, Forecastfox Enhanced, Gmail Notifier, and Adblock Plus), none of which required updating.
Very impressive offering from Mozilla. I'm very excited to see how the final release turns out.
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|Maybe you meant intuitive?
Once explained, sure, it's easy as hell...but not at *all* intuitive.
I'd have not figured that out in a million years. (Though I suppose I may not be anywhere near the bar by which such things are measured...)
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|Just thought I would ring in, my Nokia internet tablet gets a 54/100 on the Acid 3 test. Lets see an iphone do that.
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|51/100 is not that far I think
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|Any extension can be loaded using the nightly tester tools extension. The responsibility for any problem go to you, but so far, every extension I use worked with latest 3.0b5pre
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|FF3b4 is currently scoring 66/100 for me on Acid3. (XP-SP2)
One point difference. Not bad...
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|Tried beta 3 portable, since I know addons are still a nightmare. Looks sweet. Love the new true zoom feature, and it was definitely using way fewer resources, though I had no addons running. Anyhow, I installed one of my fav addons "nosquint" and it killed the zoom feature even after uninstalling. Hmmm. I guess I shouldn't have let it override the install permissions. Checking out beta 4. :) Maybe we'll finally get a browser that lives up to the hype.
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|Yeah I've seen a few extension updates lately for this release. Mozilla is getting close. FF3 is the best browser I've used to date.
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|fairly quick scaling can be achieved by pressing Ctrl-+ and Ctrl-[minus].
...or by hitting the ctrl key and scrolling up or down with your mouse-wheel. (which many may find easier than the + and - keys)
Using beta 4 since early this morning. Nice and quick. Haven't seen any rendering issues yet.
Addons that didn't work OOB were Downthemall, Greasemonkey and TMP. TMP is working now with a dev build (found on their forums), and I am sure Downthemall and greasemonkey will probably work with a little messing around if you cannot wait for an "official" update.
Adblock Plus works without any user intervention.
...
As an aside, I'd *really* love to see in firefox's "about" window: memory used by firefox (alone) and memory used by Add-ons.
...
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|You could get that information relatively easy, simply you had to compare the Taskmanager valors in Firefox 'normal' versus Firefox 'mode secure'. The mode secure inabilities all the extensions and Themes, so its consum of memory is due to Firefox only.
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|Wow.
Relative to what, coding my own extension?
lmao...
Sorry, that's called a PITA. I'd much rather be able to simply open the 'about' window, or hell, even the 'about' page to get that info.
Considering the controversy over whether FF's memory issues are extension based or browser-based, one would think this might be a common request of sorts.
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