Mozilla reaches for almost perfect 10 with latest Firefox 4 beta
Is that a browser in your trouser or...
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Mozilla has pushed out another beta for Firefox 4, just nine days after the last test build iteration of the forthcoming browser arrived.
Firefox 4 beta 10 comes with very few changes, given that the browser is at a stable stage and was granted the all-important feature complete level late last year.
The browser will come loaded with Mozilla's JaegerMonkey Javascript engine extension, additional hardware acceleration, and will allow coders to build plug-in-free 3D graphics via WebGL. Firefox 4 has been built on the open source outfit's Gecko 2.0 web platform.
Mozilla is now in the business of bashing any remaining bugs on the head prior to the final release of Firefox 4, which is expected at the end of next month.
The latest test build comes with compatibility and stability improvements for surfers using Adobe Flash on Apple's Mac OS X. There's also better memory usage and support for a graphics driver blacklist.
But that's about it. Beyond this iteration, Mozilla said one more beta will be probably be set free, followed by a Release Candidate build and then, finally, it should be showtime for Firefox 4 in February. ®
COMMENTS
Different horses, different courses
My favorite browser lets me block adverts and gratuitous unwanted Flash animations. Can I have the equivalent of Flashblock and Adblock-plus with Opera or Chrome? And how does having a really fast browser code help me, if I have to wait while unwanted megabytes trickle down my limited-bandwidth connection?
That's Firefox 3.6 by the way. I won't move to 4 until these plugins (and several others I don't wish to be without) are available.
@AC wrong
"Firefox is actually still downloading all those adverts, just not displaying them."
The Ad block pro add on for Firefox does block content from loading. Specifically it implements a nsIContentPolicy object which is registered with Firefox and called each time the browser wants to load something. The ABP impl searches it's whitelist & blacklists to determine whether the browser should allow the item or reject it.
"Some people are just too stupid it seems to pick a browser based on their own evaluation, and simply rely on what the vendors tell them...."
Stupid is as stupid does. You does.
FF 4 works perfectly well
It's a good browser, is pretty robust, it's fast, enjoys good support from websites and doesn't lack for extensions that extend it in all kinds of interesting and useful ways.
Opera has some nice features, e.g. turbo mode when you're bandwidth constrained. It also starts a bit faster, though that doesn't bother me.
It's also fairly standards compliant, although in the real world that doesn't always mean much. Opera lacks industry support. Perhaps premium sites have resources to test their content in every browser. Others just test in IE, Firefox & Safari. It's all well and good to have a standards compliant browser, but it 's too easy to encounter content which is broken on Opera.
The second biggest problem with Opera is that being a niche browser means that users are zealots. They take mortal offense that people dare use another browser, or that another browser DARE do something in a way similar to Opera. These idiots do more to scare people away from their precious browser than encourage them to try it.
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