Mozilla: One More Firefox Beta, Please
Mozilla released Firefox 4 Beta 11 earlier today, which is, according to our count already four more betas than the company had originally planned.
Yesterday, there were 47 bugs left to fix, which is enough for one more beta. But don't hold your breath.
It's somewhat silly to argue how late Firefox really is and whether one more beta really matters at this point. Mozilla is ironing out the reaming few dozen bugs for the final Beta 12, even if the developers do not want to confirm that Beta 12 will be, in fact, the final beta. Beta 11, available here from our Downloads section (Windows 32-bit version), adds bug fixes as well as the integration of the do-not-track feature, which gives users to opt-out of advertising tracking, as long as ad networks support this feature.
Firefox 4 was originally announced in April of last year and I can't quite remember any other browser that has gone through so many beta versions. However, it should be mentioned that the duration of the beta phase was unusually long for Mozilla, but not uncommon in the industry. For example, Microsoft's IE8 was one year in its beta phase and IE9 is approaching the one-year-mark as well (while we expect the RC now to be released later this week.)
Mozilla said that it plans to accelerate the release future Firefox browsers and finalize version 5, 6 and 7 by the end of the year. The changes in the browser won't be quite as dramatic as in Firefox 4, but users will get a sense of a much fresher Firefox browser. For this year, Mozilla's big task list includes further UI improvements as well as its interpretation of cloud computing, which will include a feature to store user data online and embrace open web applications. In its vision, the currently closed app platforms will eventually face away.
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So amny ytpos in tis artcle but im glad yu got it to us fast
Better late than Vista.
I see theyre doing things like game game developers used to do things. Better to release it when its done than to release it unfinished to patch 10 times a week...
quotas47++
Before someone "complains" about the browser's UI becoming similar to Chrome's, read this first.
Firefox 4's UI first did not copy CHROME OR OPERA'S. Google or Mozilla were not the first to develop the idea of tabs on top. Firefox 4's UI is similar but much better than Chrome's. For example, when you open 80+ tabs (yes there are power users out there) into the tab bar, Firefox hides the tabs that won't visually pleasing fit on to screen. Chrome will try to fit all of them into the tab bar making it hard to differentiate between the tabs with millimeter sized tabs. Also Chrome still does not have a good organizer such as Firefox 4's tab candy. Chrome does not know how to deal with clutter.
The extensions in Chrome are inferior to those in Firefox collection. Google Chrome extensions API is terribly limited for extension developers when compared to Firefox extensions API. That is why Chrome is unable to create extensions equal to Noscript and Adblockplus. Even though ad blocking extensions for Chrome CLAIM to be able to block ads with the newest version of Chrome, my findings with the latest stable Chrome build and Adblockplus for Chrome beta show the ads are STILL only HIDDEN AFTER LOADING. Even if ithe ads load for only a mere half a second, the fact is the browser is still hiding ads. Notscript is by far inferior to the original Noscript for Firefox. http://optimalcycling.com/other-pr [...] mitations/
Speed-wise Firefox 4 has made huge leaps in performance. You will physically be unable to notice the difference in page loading times between browsers. This is assuming you can't tell the difference between millisecond time differences.
In conclusion, Firefox 4 is superior to Chrome.
I'm just surprised that Mozilla couldn't deliver this browser sooner. I mean, you'd think they'd have a massive collection of engineers working on it.
Even with user surveys and statistics tracking though, they make stupid changes. Like changing search from CTRL+E to CTRL+K. That was just absurd.
i can survive one more beta if that will mean a more polished final product.
Tried it, but it is still slower than chrome on my PC, so I'm likely going to sit this one out. But here's hoping they get their act together! I love mozilla, great company, great values, just need to make things faster. And the new UI is ugly... needs some work.
I am sure Johnsmith, and his hate for VLC that I share, is right that it is much better than chrome on a technical level, but when I open the program I want it to open in under 5sec, and I want it to start loading pages when I hit 'enter', nither of which it actuially does (at least on my system). Instead it just wants to space out for a sec before it gets down to business. And the problem that firefox really has is that chrome is only going to get better with time. Chrome is on rev1 still... and it is already faster... so what happens when they do their next big update?