Meet Firefox 4.0.1

[iwod]

Was beta 9 supposed to fix memory usage issues? After upgrading from beta 8, with one tab currently open, firefox is using around 200,000k of memory.

You could be right here, running the latest nightly and I am on only 600mb with 39 tabs :blink: Before it was 800-900mb...

It is not totally fixed but definitely improved. Then there is Compartmental GC. Which helps especially with Multiple Tabs, as was the vase with 39 tabs. You should expect another 20% decrease in memory once all the memory bugs are fixed.

[Kirkburn]

I stand by my claim that Firefox4's font rendering is inferior to IE9s:

But is that beta 9 or post beta 9? As mentioned a few posts back, a fix is landing/landed after b9 on it.

[Udedenkz]

Is that something I need to do in about:config? What is the exact phrase I should search for?

Edit: image.mem.discardable by default is set to "true". Is this what you are referring to?

I think I meant - image.mem.decodeondraw

[sid1337]

I stand by my claim that Firefox4's font rendering is inferior to IE9s:

The top one is IE9, the bottom one is FF4.

Tracking and kerning is messed up, font weight too, and font hinting is non-existant.

IE9 will use DirectWrite or GDI depending on if it's in standards mode or quirks/IE7/IE8 mode, respectively. FWIW, for bus.png, the bottom text looks much more even than the top text. (If you haven't installed the Windows D2D update yet, do so -- it'll make things even better.)

Plus, the outlines are so hazy and light, it's hard to even look at. (URL bar example)

IE9 uses GDI exclusively in its chrome. The lack of subpixel AA has been fixed in the newest nightly.

[ViperAFK]

Yeah the fonts in the latest nightly look significantly better than they did before.

[xankazo]

Yeah the fonts in the latest nightly look significantly better than they did before.

Gonna try the nightly now, hope it's stable enough to keep using it. :)

[The_Decryptor Veteran]

Fonts in the chrome look like crap now, there's something wrong with the maths but it's got excessive colour fringing (entirely unlike the content area)

It's reminding me of GDI, but with better spacing.

[Unrealistic]

i posted the question o their staff and a guy named bob replied with a sneak peak of the new version that is due out this week. They also took away password sycn it appears. Probably because LastPass owns it now.

I hope they didn't take away password syncing in the free version. That will definitely annoy me.

[Corris Veteran]

Still hope they shove the tabs into the title bar on OSX soon, not to seems like a waste of space to me.

[StarLion]

I hate-hate-HATE tabs in the titlebar when using Windows 7.

On normal applications, you can drag a titlebar to the top of the screen to maximize it. You can also do the reverse, dragging the titlebar of a maximized window down to restore it into a window again. This is a feature of Aero Snap that works consistently on every application... except Firefox 4. When you have a few tabs open, and you maximize Firefox 4, tabs shoot up into the titlebar. If you try to drag the titlebar down to restore the window, you end up tearing off a tab instead. Mozilla went out of their way to make FF4 inconsistent with the rest of the OS, nice...

Is it really too much to ask to leave a 2-pixel margin above the tabs when maximized so the mouse can still grab the window by its titlebar by moving the cursor to the top of the screen? Seems like a pretty simple thing for Mozilla to overlook.

If you want to restore normal Aero Snap functionality with Firefox 4, open about:config and set browser.tabs.drawInTitlebar to False

This also allows you to fit more tabs while maximized, since they don't get squished between the "Firefox" button and the standard window controls.

[Gaffney]

The latest nightly really has improved the fonts dramatically. For me the fonts are better than chrome except the really bold fonts.

[ambiance]

When are they going to fix the oversized archive button in Gmail?

[tuckeratlarge]

When are they going to fix the oversized archive button in Gmail?

How is that a Firefox problem? It's the same in Chrome and IE

[Neyht Member]

If you want to restore normal Aero Snap functionality with Firefox 4, open about:config and set browser.tabs.drawInTitlebar to False

A much more elegant way to do that is to edit you userchrome.css file and add these lines:

#main-window[sizemode="maximized"] #TabsToolbar {
  padding: 2px 0 0 0 !important;
}

There's your 2 pixel margin...I'm pretty sure that will work on it's own. I have a couple other styles enabled. I think mozilla should make this default.

The way they have it now makes it harder to pull it off the top, not impossible.

[dnast]

Fonts in the chrome look like crap now, there's something wrong with the maths but it's got excessive colour fringing (entirely unlike the content area)

It's reminding me of GDI, but with better spacing.

Yeah, I agree. My monitor is relatively small for a 1080p (23") and I tend to sit back from it, so I couldn't' really "see" the color fringing at first and thought something was wrong with my eyes, heh. I scooted forward and hit Win + + (magnifier) and it's like a rainbow!

Oh well, there are a bunch of font-related fixes on the way so hopefully it won't be like this for too long.

[Chaltalian]

Are they still going to go from this: <--This is BETA 9.

To this: <--This is from the mockups.

In the final UI?

[Kaoxt]

Are they still going to go from this: <--This is BETA 9.

To this: <--This is from the mockups.

In the final UI?

I was wondering the same thing too. Looks a lot better IMO.

[Unrealistic]

I hate-hate-HATE tabs in the titlebar when using Windows 7.

On normal applications, you can drag a titlebar to the top of the screen to maximize it. You can also do the reverse, dragging the titlebar of a maximized window down to restore it into a window again. This is a feature of Aero Snap that works consistently on every application... except Firefox 4. When you have a few tabs open, and you maximize Firefox 4, tabs shoot up into the titlebar. If you try to drag the titlebar down to restore the window, you end up tearing off a tab instead. Mozilla went out of their way to make FF4 inconsistent with the rest of the OS, nice...

Is it really too much to ask to leave a 2-pixel margin above the tabs when maximized so the mouse can still grab the window by its titlebar by moving the cursor to the top of the screen? Seems like a pretty simple thing for Mozilla to overlook.

If you want to restore normal Aero Snap functionality with Firefox 4, open about:config and set browser.tabs.drawInTitlebar to False

This also allows you to fit more tabs while maximized, since they don't get squished between the "Firefox" button and the standard window controls.

Why don't you just use the built-in hotkeys? Windows + Up/Left/Right/Down and that will solve all of your problems as well.

[Kirkburn]

Is it really too much to ask to leave a 2-pixel margin above the tabs when maximized so the mouse can still grab the window by its titlebar by moving the cursor to the top of the screen? Seems like a pretty simple thing for Mozilla to overlook.

You completely lose the Fitt's law benefits then (that you can't just throw your mouse to the top of the screen to select a tab). I agree, it's not ideal, but a 2px gap on top is the wrong way to go about solving it.

[Chaltalian]

I was wondering the same thing too. Looks a lot better IMO.

Yeah the arrow on the current one just looks terrible...

[primexx]

You completely lose the Fitt's law benefits then (that you can't just throw your mouse to the top of the screen to select a tab). I agree, it's not ideal, but a 2px gap on top is the wrong way to go about solving it.

i think it should be like this:

2px gap at top

click on gap or tab: browser behaviour (i.e. select tab)

double click on gap: window behaviour (i.e. restore)

double click on tab: browser behaviour (i.e. new tab, etc)

drag gap: window behaviour (i.e. aero stuff)

drag tab: browser behaviour (i.e. move tab, tear off tab, etc)

[PyX]

Does anyone have a screenshot of what they want to do with it on the Mac? Because right now the GUI totally feels like it has been ported. It?s much better than before, but we?re not quite there yet. Oh and any idea of when they will drop Carbon completely? I can feel that it?s far from 100% Cocoa.

[Chaltalian]

Does anyone have a screenshot of what they want to do with it on the Mac? Because right now the GUI totally feels like it has been ported. It?s much better than before, but we?re not quite there yet. Oh and any idea of when they will drop Carbon completely? I can feel that it?s far from 100% Cocoa.

These might be a tiny bit outdated, I'm not sure. I haven't tried Firefox 4 on a Mac. Take a look at these though:

http://blog.stephenhorlander.com/2010/06/01/in-content-ui-visual-unification/

https://wiki.mozilla.org/Firefox/4.0_Mac_Theme_Mockups

[The_Decryptor Veteran]

Does anyone have a screenshot of what they want to do with it on the Mac? Because right now the GUI totally feels like it has been ported. It?s much better than before, but we?re not quite there yet. Oh and any idea of when they will drop Carbon completely? I can feel that it?s far from 100% Cocoa.

With 3.0 they did the main push from Carbon to Cocoa (moved from QuickDraw to Quartz, Carbon widgets to Cocoa widgets, etc.) so there was only underlying APIs and such left that still used Carbon. With 4.0 they're shipping a 64bit build by default, so they've had to reduce the Carbon usage even more (to none now I think).

The thing is, there's still Carbon APIs which have no Cocoa equivalent, so they've had to work around missing features or "wallpaper over" bugs.

[Neyht Member]

You completely lose the Fitt's law benefits then (that you can't just throw your mouse to the top of the screen to select a tab). I agree, it's not ideal, but a 2px gap on top is the wrong way to go about solving it.

You can argue that Microsoft is using Fitt's law in this case with areo snap. It's a personal preference of what a person wants to happen when they throw their mouse to the top of the screen.

People with Windows 7 will tend to want the application to function the same way all of the other programs function in windows. People with Vista, or XP ( or other) won't care.