Ayone tried Firefox 4 yet?

[k4kyv]

I updated to FF 3.67 the other day.  Can't tell any difference from 3.66, but the web page also invites users to upgrade to version 4.0. They must have taken it from the beta stage to final release. They claim a "new look" and major "improvements" (uh-oh).

I usually wait a few weeks before upgrading to a major new version of software, long enough for the remaining bugs to be worked out and to avoid unexpected incompatibilities, so I am in no hurry to install it.  Just wondering if anyone else has tried it, and how you like it so far?

[Pete, WA2CWA]

Been using it since it was announced. Installed on 2 Vista machines, 2 XP machines (1 a laptop), and one Win7 machine. All running fine and the previous version 3.67, all ran fine on the same machines. FF 4 seems to run much faster on all machines. Haven't bombed anything yet.

[w5omr]

Working fine on my XP box.  The linux box, well... as K5SWK would say "That's a horse of a different corrall" 

Seems I was adding some audio codecs and things were fine.. rebooted the browser (for a plug-in) then got informed of the 3.6.5 update... did that, and now, no audio in the browser.  Still have system sounds, just nothing in the browser - no youtube, no flash, no nada.

[flintstone mop]

Hey Don
You will like FF V4. Definitely faster and there is more computer screen. All of those crappy tool bars are gone!!!!

Fred

[WQ9E]

FF4 is on all of my machines and it works fine.  The upgrade was seamless and it is more responsive than 3.X.

I wish Apple would buy a clue from Mozilla.  Two to three times a month Apple has an annoying Itunes update which downloads the entire 80 megs (and growing) bloatware.   The boys in Cupertino don't seem to get the concept of upgrade/patch.  The entire upgrade to FF4 was under 16 megs.  I believe a browser is a bit more complex than a personal audio device "helper".

[KX5JT]

I like it.

[W1AEX]

This is a timely thread for me. I have been pondering whether to give FF4 a shot, but have seen quite a few unhappy people at the Mozilla forum I check into daily at      http://www.dslreports.com/forum/mozilla

Is it true that the status bar on the bottom is no longer there? What happens to extensions like N0HR Propfire that display in the status bar? I'm also not sure about compatibility with at least three extensions:

NoScript?
AdBlock?
Download Helper?

I usually hold off for several weeks before moving to the next numerical generation to assure full compatibility, so I will probably hold off for now. I'm currently using a theme called "Classic Compact" with version 3.6.16 and it provides a lot of screen real-estate for content, which I like a lot. It's certainly encouraging that everyone here seems pleased with the 4.x.x version.

[w3jn]

I hope they've fixed the memory leak problem that has plagued various versions of 3.X.

[longle SWL]

All my add-ons seem to work. The only annoyance for me was the change of order in the drop-down menu when right-clicking on a link. Open In A New Window used to be at the top, now Open In A New Tab is at the top. There's an add-on I found that allows you to edit the menus and I used that to fix it.

[Opcom]

I put it on a computer at work that is connected to the raw internet, to get some control over the "internet experience".

They made it look and feel more like IE and I did not like that.

With each new version especially for add-ons, more 'things' you might not want are "offered" and you have to say no at install time.

Functionally it is fine and very usable although I will soon go to oldversion, get 3.6.13, and uninstall 4__, as 3 meets the requirement.

I didn't notice any huge improvements, maybe the meaningful ones are inside.

[longle SWL]

Well after a few days of use I have removed FF 4 and re-installed 3.5.6. While it performed well there were just too many annoyances to justify keeping it. The issue with clicking on a link was mentioned above so I won't repeat that but there were others. When you go to edit the toolbars the icons had a nasty habit of disappearing into oblivion. The only way out was to restore the defaults and start over. Without dragging this out I'll mention just one other thing, and that is the cache system. I have always been able to go into the cache and pull out any particular files I wanted to save but FF changed the entire system using sub-directories with just one or two files cached in each. What a convoluted mess. Well. it's gone now, I'll stick with old reliable 3.5.6.

[kb3ouk]

i use 3.6.6 on my netbook here (running puppy linux 5.1.1) and recently installed puppy 5.2.5 on the harddrive (i was running 5.11 on a sd card) and have firefox 4 on that install and i like 3.66 much better. Yes, the status bar at the bottom is gone, and i don't like the look of that either since there is no seperation between the webpage and the computer's bar at the bottom of the screen. what is really annoying is that when a page is loading it pops up a mini status bar that extends maybe 1/4 of the way across to say it is looking up the webpage or whatever. also, by default the tabs were above the address bar which i had to change, and all the buttons are moved around compared to what i was used to in 3.66. havent try it on a windows machine yet, i had firefox on my windows vista desktop but didnt use it much so uninstalled it, now i rarely use the vista machine because this netbook runs much better and is more reliable. here are some screenshots of both versions i mentioned as they appear on this computer.

[AJ1G]

Something I found out about last night while attempting to print IRS .pdf forms from the irs.gov web site on our iMAc 9,1 using Firefox as a browser - they will look ok on using Preview after downloading, but will not print to a printer.  You apparently must use Adobe Acrobat to view and print the irs.gov .pdf files this year.  Old irs.gov forms I had downloaded last year to the iMac still printed fine without using Acrobat.  Have not had any trouble printing any other .pdf files from any source previously on the iMac.  Solved problem by downloading Acrobat from the link on the IRS site and making it the default .pdf viewer with Firefox.  

[W1ATR]

I let it update to FF4 a few days ago and it ran OK till tonight. When I would close out the browser then reopen it later on, all the tabs I had open suddenly started reopening again. Searched around the options a bit and couldnt find anything. I just went and rolled it back to 3.6.9 and it's working right again. I like the look and function of this version anyway.

[kb3ouk]

I had the same problem with firefox 4 when i would close it sometimes or when i shut it off, thought there was a setting but couldn't find it, i do know that it would ask to save tabs or not when closing but that may have just been the first time you use it.

[W2PFY]

AdBlock?

That extension  works well here for me on 4.

[k4kyv]

I'll probably pass on this version until they work the bugs out or come up with a better version.  From what I am reading here and elsewhere, this appears to be to Mozilla what Windows Vista was to Micro$haft.

[N8LGU]

    After using FF 4.0 for several days, I went back to FF 3.6. FF 4.0 hangs intermittently several times a day. It appears to be unstable. I've never had any problems with FF 3.6. I'll wait until they come out with a better version.

[W2JTD]

I don't like it, but that's just me.
If you have 4.0 and wanna go back to the previous version, it's here:
http://releases.mozilla.org/pub/mozilla.org/firefox/releases/

- Paul, JTD

[k4kyv]

I just got a notice to-day that Firefox 5 is available for download.  That didn't take long.  I think some form of version 3 was current for well over a year. Maybe this was in response to complaints about FF4.  According to the link below, the "upgrade" is no big deal.

Firefox 5's user interface is nearly identical to Firefox 4, for instance.

I did download the latest upgrade to FF3, v 3.6.18. I'll probably stay with v 3 for a while longer.

http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/9217813/Mozilla_ships_Firefox_5_holds_to_new_rapid_release_plan

[WA3VJB]

General topic:  Browsers

After avoiding Explorer 6, 7 and 8, I read a good review about Number 9 and have been pleased with the results.

Thanks for the advice on Firefox 4.  I've been satisfied throughout the "3" and have not seen enough reason to change to 4.

Firefox 3 remains my default browser.

UPDATE:

Well THAT was weird: No sooner did I hit "save" to post the above, then I got a Firefox pop-up.

[Pete, WA2CWA]

Been running Firefox 4.0.1 since it came out. Runs great.
I also have I.E. 9 and it runs great too. I bounce between them all day long depending on what I am doing.

[Pete, WA2CWA]

Firefox 5.0 info: http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2387399,00.asp
Firefox 5.0 Release Notes: http://www.mozilla.com/en-US/firefox/5.0beta/releasenotes/

[W0BTU]

I use FF4 under Windows 7, and absolutely love it. The problems I had with FF actually were caused by the buggy 64-bit Adobe Reader plugin. Once I configured FF to load PDF files externally in Reader, rather than inside FF (which is the default), my issues all vanished.

[WQ9E]

Mike,

You might want to try the "Foxit" PDF reader.  I find it is considerably more responsive with large files (like some of the high rest Tektronix manuals) compared to Adobe.  Of course it works very well with Firefox.