Why Firefox 4 Is Winning the Browser Battle

PC World ^ | 03/23/2011 | Katherine Noyes

[OldDeckHand]

Microsoft may have seen fit to boast about the 2.35 million downloads its new Internet Explorer 9 browser received in its first 24 hours, but Mozilla's Firefox 4 has since essentially blown such figures out of the water.

In fact, not only did Firefox 4 claim a million downloads in its first three hours and almost 7 million in its first day--surpassing by far Internet Explorer 9--but by Wednesday, the day after its official release, it had already claimed almost 2 percent of the worldwide Internet browser market, according to research firm StatCounter.

[OldDeckHand]

I upgraded yesterday. My only word of warning is that I have noticed text-editor's, like the one FreeRepublic uses, acts a bit strange. You get vertical lines running through the editing box. It's annoying. It's a problem I have on both my PCs - one desktop, one laptop both running 64-bit W7.

I'm also disappointed FF4 isn't 64-bit.

Last comment, I noticed that after installation, the FF4 welcome page runs an HTML5 video. I have an i7, and yet my CPU was almost pegged while that video ran. I don't know if it's a bug with HTML5 or something else but Flash still runs fine.

[UB355]

I downloaded IE9 first as a RC then as a finished product. No problems with website rendering.

[OldDeckHand]

I have been playing with IE9. Generally, I really like it. What I don’t like is that there isn’t an ad-blocker that is half as good as the worst one available for FF. If there was, I’d probably use it IE.

[steve86]

I don’t follow the Windows builds but the Linux target is available as 64 bit. An odd font problem that was occurring in FR’s edit box actually cleared up for me in 4.0

[Sarah Barracuda]

Just downloaded Firefox 4 a little while ago..so far so good, took me some time to get used to it, like I prefer the tabs for web sites to be underneath the toolbar..so once I figured out how to fix that under options it looks really nice, different but nice

[fuzzybutt]

Biggest problem with Firefox is the same problem with every other browser in the world other than IE. They do not run ActiveX.

Being that I am in the CCTV business and virtually no camera systems operate on anything other than ActiveX, I never use any other browser but IE8.

[CodeToad]

“winning”? Is that like a Charlie Win?

[JoeProBono]

[VeniVidiVici]

I downloaded FF4 and still have no idea how. Unless it directed me away from the FF3 link somehow.

[CalvaryJohn]

Go to View—Toolbars, uncheck tabs on top. I just downloaded FF4 and it seems fast.

[steve86]

Biggest problem with Firefox is the same problem with every other browser in the world other than IE. They do not run ActiveX.

That's a feature!!!

[Malsua]

Biggest problem with Firefox is the same problem with every other browser in the world other than IE. They do not run ActiveX.

ActiveX is also a ginormous security hole. I have a number of network cams, and I agree that it's a pain that they're only supported by IE but the problem is with the cam people, not firefox. I'm glad FF doesn't support activeX.

[Straight Vermonter]

Speaking of the forms on here, do you use the user script addon for FreeRepublic? It makes posting much easier.

[US_MilitaryRules]

Thanks!

[CedarDave]

Techlist Ping!

[OldDeckHand]

"I downloaded FF4 and still have no idea how. Unless it directed me away from the FF3 link somehow."

You mean your FF3 "magically" upgraded itself to FF4? That would be strange. I had to actually go the the FF site to download it, even though I have automatic updates enabled.

[OldDeckHand]

"Speaking of the forms on here, do you use the user script addon for FreeRepublic? It makes posting much easier."

I do not. I will try that out. Maybe it will solve my incredibly annoying problem. Seriously, it's hard to even see what I'm typing.

[US_MilitaryRules]

The other thing is they transposed the ‘open link in new tab’ and ‘open link in new window’

[US_MilitaryRules]

When you right click on a hot link.

[jimjohn]

as a developer, I have to use FF. However, I find it a memory hog. Does FF4 address this?

[Capt. Tom]

When I first put my website up many years ago; over 95% of the browsers viewing it were MS browsers.

Today many people use FireFox and I recently did my site over to make it viewable on both MSIE and Firefox.
There is a slight difference. Not much, but on some other browsers, it is so bad you can't straddle the difference.- tom

[OldDeckHand]

'as a developer, I have to use FF. However, I find it a memory hog. Does FF4 address this?"

I have noticed that FF suffers from (my phrase) "memory creep". It seems that from the time that you launch it, it uses an increasing share of available memory (and I have 8GB). I have not found that the latest release remedies it, thus far. This is one of the reasons I liked IE9 64-bit - IE9 doesn't suffer this ailment, and was hoping FF4 would be available in 64-bit.

[Sarah Barracuda]

Thanks..yes I also notice that it seems faster..another difference I notice is the refresh button, I don’t see it here anymore, if I want to refresh a page I have to go on the top where you put in a link there is a little refresh button but I’m used to it when it used to be on the left side, next to the stop and home button..is there a way of getting that back?

[TomGuy]

as a developer, I have to use FF. However, I find it a memory hog. Does FF4 address this?

FF has had that problem since as early as version 0.7. Mozilla claimed in their various forum discussions that the memory leak was caused by some unknown extension(s). They have never accepted responsibility.

From version 2 to 3, the problem was reduced. However, FF 3 can still eat up memory even when it is just open but not in use.

I tried several Windows ram/memory releasing programs. The only one that seemed to work was a little program called CleanMem from pcwintech.com/cleanmem.

I haven't tried version 4 yet. I am back at 3.6.3, because later 3.6 series created havoc on my computer.

[Calvin Locke]

I was reminded that control-r was the keyboard refresh command when I mentioned about having to get used to the address bar location.

[Calvin Locke]

...even though I have automatic updates enabled.

Mine popped up with a notice that 4 was available.

[Straight Vermonter]

The worst problem I have with IE is that it doesn’t like a blank cell in a table. I always have to remember to go back and put something, like the space symbol, in each empty cell. Drives me crazy.

[ken in texas]

Thanks for the reminder. I had already seen the update, but held off until this afternoon.

Thanks to some tips, I moved the tabs bar to the previous layout.

As SB said, there is no reload button. It also looks like they've removed the "Stop Page Load" button.

I understand there might be keyboard shortcuts for these things, but when I browse web sites most of my activity is with the mouse. I don't want to use the keyboard for something I used to do with a click. Unless the option is buried somewhere, someone really goofed on the User-Interface.

[knews_hound]

F5 is also the refresh button.

I tend to be more keyboard-centric and use it rather than the mouse most of the time.

Cheers,

knewshound

[thatjoeguy]

Well I’ll be, since FF 4 is out why the heck is my FF 3.x.xx downloading another 3.x.xx+1??????

Didn’t know 4 was out, you’d think that 3 would at least mention it or something.

[SamAdams76]

I switched to Chrome a few months ago and it has turned out to be the best browsing experience I've ever had. At first, it seemed kind of sparse but once I got the hang of it, I came to appreciate the simplicity of it. It's fast and seems to load every page properly.

I'll have to check out FF4 however.

[SamAdams76]

I switched to Chrome a few months ago and it has turned out to be the best browsing experience I've ever had. At first, it seemed kind of sparse but once I got the hang of it, I came to appreciate the simplicity of it. It's fast and seems to load every page properly.

I'll have to check out FF4 however.

[thatjoeguy]

I’m likin’ it. Seems to be a bit quicker (then 3.x) on page loads.

[Cyber Liberty]

That is way cool. I just added it.

[Straight Vermonter]

I probably should have mentioned that there is an addon for “tree view” and for youtube embedding as well. I don’t know what freeper made them but they are very cool.

[Windflier]

Speaking of the forms on here, do you use the user script addon for FreeRepublic? It makes posting much easier.

How so? Brief description before I download it? Thanks.

[Tainan]

I have been a Firefox user since 1.0. Been happy with it. Rarely use anything else. I've tried Safari and a few other browsers - not happy with them. Back to Firefox.

Yesterday, my auto notice informed me that a Firefox upgrade, 3.6.16, was available. I did the upgrade.
As soon as it was finished a screen came on that pretty much demanded that I should upgrade to the new, improved, faster, funner 4.0.
I did....and the trouble began. 4.0 SUCKS...SUCKS BIG TIME

I lost all my add-ons....All my bookmarks...all my 'helper' links in my tool bar. GONE!

I use these items extensively...EVERDAY...ALL DAY.

Then the long process of trying to get back to where I was began. XP has its 'restore' feature....yeah...I used it. Finally, after 3.5 hours of lost time, I got 3.6.16 installed and operable....BUT STILL NO ADD-ONS, BOOKMARKS AND HELPER LINKS IN MY TOOL BAR.

I still like and use Firefox...but 4.0.....FUHGEDDABOUTIT FOR NOW!

[Tainan]

The ‘Gresemonkey’ add-on makes posting a LOT easier also.

[Straight Vermonter]

The box for posting is much larger (about 99% of your screen width) and there are buttons for the most commonly used HTML tags. If you post images or links or just like nicely formatted posts then it is definitely worth downloading.

[Windflier]

...there are buttons for the most commonly used HTML tags. If you post images or links or just like nicely formatted posts then it is definitely worth downloading.

That sounds very interesting. I've wanted a rich text editor for FR for a long time. This sounds like something close to that.

Question: do you have to activate it manually for each FR session, or does it automatically supplant the normal FR posting window after it's installed?

Thanks!

[Straight Vermonter]

It is incorporated into your browser. It does it's thing automatically. If you don't have it already download greasemonkey. After you have that you can download any of the addons at usercripts.org

I have scripts that modify google, facebook, flickr, netflix, imdb, youtube, wikipedia and on and on. It's nice to have webpages work like you want them to.

[catnipman]

Wonder if FF4 fixed the fatal memory leaks that have continuously worsened with every version? No matter what I do mine eventually consumes over 500MB and then drops dead after about 30 minutes of intense browsing. Tried every trick in the book. Nothing works. Nothing.

I wouldn’t even consider using FF if it wasn’t for a hand full of extremely useful addons.

[Cyber Liberty]

I have the Tree View. It’s not as cool as this.

[VeniVidiVici]

You mean your FF3 "magically" upgraded itself to FF4? That would be strange. I had to actually go the the FF site to download it, even though I have automatic updates enabled.

Nope. I went to download FF3 and somehow ended up with FF4. Obviously I clicked on the wrong link but as many times as I've downloaded FF3 before, strange how I haven't downloaded one for the wrong platform by mistake. Now they are pushing FF4 and viola! I end up with it.

Don't want it. Don't need it.

[skr]

I just right-click in a blank spot on the page and choose “Reload” from the resulting menu.

[skr]

Ani-weather is my favorite add-on. FF has only stopped working a few times over the past few months, and I do a lot of browsing. I was having problems with printing from web pages with IE but not with FF.

[Politicalmom]

Every time I upgrade I get new problems. This time things won’t full load, sometimes I get odd fonts until I refresh again, and it’s constantly crashing.

I tolerate the problems because of the addons, though.

[Politicalmom]

Do you have the FEBE addon? It saves your Firefox settings automatically.

[buck61]

there isn’t an ad-blocker that is half as good as the worst one available for FF.

Same here.

I down loaded the new FF 4.0 onto an older XP, doubled the speed.
Used the MS OS 9 on a new lap-top, no improvement. Installed the FF 4.0, much faster surfing and more stable. Like the Ghostery in FF 4.0

[OldDeckHand]

"This time things won’t full load, sometimes I get odd fonts until I refresh again, and it’s constantly crashing."

I was having similar problems, especially with fonts on the built-in text editor. My son turned off (in the options-advanced tab under "browsing") "use hardware acceleration when available". The thing works fine now.

It might be something worth trying.