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Comments: 570 + - News: Mozilla Reveals Firefox 4 Plans on Tuesday May 11, @09:00AM
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Barence writes "Mozilla has given a breakdown of its plans for Firefox 4. Perhaps the most striking change to Firefox 4 is the user interface, which takes a great deal of inspiration from Google Chrome. 'Something UI designers have known for a long time is that the simpler an interface looks, the faster it will seem,' said director of Firefox Mike Beltzner during the presentation. Also mooted was the ability to give applications such as Gmail and Twitter their own permanent tabs for easy access, and the introduction of a 'switch to tab' button, allowing power users running hundreds of tabs to quickly find the one they want. Beltzner said Mozilla was also looking at replicating Chrome's tactic of silently updating the browser in the background, removing the annoying wait when Firefox first loads up."
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Sounds like speed holes (Score:5, Insightful)
Anyone remember that episode of the Simpsons? "These are speed holes. They make the car go faster."
Personally, I'd rather have the browser go faster than look faster.
Got that right. (Score:3, Interesting)
With the popularity of Netbooks, I see FF losing market share to Google because of the performance differences.
Re:Got that right. (Score:5, Interesting)
"Noticeable" is an understatement. My primary machine is a P8600 dual-core laptop with 2Gb of RAM and firefox + 4 plugins take 5 times more to load than Chrome + 4 plugins. My workhorse is a quad-core Q8400 with 8 Gb RAM. There, Chrome loads instantly, whereas Firefox takes 2 seconds even with no plugins.
I'm using Firefox for development only and just because of Firebug (I know there's a Firebug lite for Chrome but it's not even close, like its Developer Tools).
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Re:Sounds like speed holes (Score:5, Insightful)
Personally, I'd rather have the browser go faster than look faster.
Personally, I'd rather have a stable browser with useful features that I use than a browser that can render a page 0.1 second faster. I really don't understand this obsession over the speed of the browser.
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Re:Sounds like speed holes (Score:4, Insightful)
Well, to me it looks exactly like Microsoftitis. The disease where don’t come up with other ideas, but imitate others, always runing behind them, but by definition never catching up. And if you can’t imitate or only imitate it badly, you at least make it look like it does, and make it all shiny.
I hate to say it, but: It’s the point where a project has jumped the shark.
Because projects rarely get out of that endless catching up race again. And they forget about actually innovating and leading the way.
I hope the Firefox team can quickly recover. But I don’t put any money on it anymore.
Maybe someone comes up with some KHTML or Opera thing that can beat Firefox’s range of extensions. (And make no mistake: People don’t switch their browser, until ALL features that they use are available PLUS some more. Same thing happened with the Internet Explorer. The same thing is true with Linux. (But with Linux, I don’t want it, since then it wouldn’t be Linux anymore, but would have become what it hates.)
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Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
My personal opinion is that the new version looks like ass -- where's the menubar? Ribbon interfaces don't seem fas
Re:Sounds like speed holes (Score:4, Informative)
More likely it's Adblock causing the problem. I've run a Firefox with Noscript only for the last 1.5 yr (Win7-64/RC>-Retail Win7-64) and have had no crashes due to any extensions. I have had crashes due to Plug-ins such as Flash/Quicktime/WMP but that's been endemic to the OS itself.
I personally gave up on Adblock since it was slowing FF down simply due to the number of blocks I had. After Entered most of them into the Hosts file, I was able to get rid of it and go discovered that NoScript configured to disable flash/silverlight and everything else worked as well if not better then the combo of Noscript/Ablock.
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H.264 support? (Score:4, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:H.264 support? (Score:5, Interesting)
From the numbers a lot of people have posted, it would only cost about 3 cents per copy of Firefox. Ask the users to pay the bill: "Do you want to still be able to view YouTube? Please donate 25 cents today!" It would fund Mozilla AND pay the H.264 royalties where it's needed.
Others have suggested that the Mozilla Foundation should just use the OS to playback video and stop complaining for nothing. H.264 has already won, it's already used everywhere. The more they fight, the longer Flash video will survive. Does Adobe pay Mozilla or what?
And some people live in countries where software patents are not even legal. Why should they pay anything?
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Re:H.264 support? (Score:5, Insightful)
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Re:H.264 support? (Score:5, Insightful)
H.264 has already won, it's already used everywhere. The more they fight, the longer Flash video will survive. Does Adobe pay Mozilla or what?
Why is everyone so eager to suddenly replace one proprietary format for another? I'm not saying that h.264 is the wrong choice, it certainly seems better than the competition right now, but just because the licensing group are playing nice at the moment, don't assume they will always play nice. Maybe the right choice is to stick with Flash a little longer to further development on an open source alternative and Mozilla have got it right. I guess time will tell as h.264 looks pretty inevitable now, I just hope we're not having similar discussions in a few years about how we're shackled with it as a format and the people behind it are screwing everyone.
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Re:H.264 support? (Score:4, Insightful)
Supporting H.264 doesn't mean FF has to actually ship the codec. Go learn about GStreamer and DirectShow, then rethink your silly argument.
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Re:H.264 support? (Score:5, Informative)
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Re:H.264 support? (Score:4, Insightful)
h.264 and HTML5 aren't synonymous - HTML5 just provides a video container, the browser vendor decides what codecs to allow, so it's entirely possible to fully support HTML5 yet still have no h.264 support.
It was also possible to sell fully functional VCRs that weren't VHS. But it wasn't easy finding content for them.
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Re:H.264 support? (Score:5, Insightful)
No. Most people hate it. However most graphics and UI designers, tech reporters and iThing owners love it because it is the latest and most shiniest flashing glitter ball that they must play with. These are the people who make and demand interface changes. These are the people who actually think that menu bars are a "waste of screen space". These are the people who think that putting tabs outside of the program window frame is either a useful or desired change. These are the people think that "minimalism"--giving the user less and less controls or options--constitutes a step forward at all costs.
Firefox's UI is fine. But because of these people, resources at Mozilla are being wasted on needless keeping up with the Jones at Google. Meanwhile actually needed features like speed, process separation and support for self signed certs are being sidelined while the team focuses on making the browser shiny.
Google is a steamroller, and is aiming to squash the other browsers flat. Firefox included. Lack of realistic leadership, as manifested in these proposals, will only ensure that Google succeeds where Microsoft has failed.
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Silent update (Score:3, Insightful)
It won't be "silent" if it keeps that obnoxious behaviour it does now, where it interrupts you with a new version splash page. It's no less rude than a popup ad.
"the faster it will seem" ? (Score:5, Insightful)
Seems faster? In my experience it has been more than "seems", Chrome actually is faster. The thing keeping me on Firefox is the various add-ons which I cannot get in Chrome. If Chrome were to get vertical tabs, that would go a long way towards making a switch.
It would be nice if Firefox did improve performance though. Would be a lot more significant than a trimmed down interface while the program runs just as slow.
removing annoying wait when Firefox first loads (Score:5, Insightful)
Thank you! That is the most annoying part of Firefox. I hate when I open Firefox and it makes me wait while it updates, and then when it finally does open, it does so on a pointless tab that offers me absolutely no useful information and once again delays what I'm trying to do.
I don't like the secret/stealth update either. Here's a very simple idea:
First, install the update when I shut down the browser. You're not wasting my time then because I'm done using it. Second, don't give me a tab telling me what I already know. I know it was updated, I just fricken saw it updated. I'm not an idiot.
Re:removing annoying wait when Firefox first loads (Score:5, Insightful)
Unless the whole reason you're shutting it down, as is often the case for me, is that FF has been running so long that it's become an enormous memory hog and you need to shut it down then restart it so your system will speed back up. Or you're shutting it down in order to shut down or reboot your entire computer. I agree with the previous commenter, just give us the choice.
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Menu Bar..? (Score:5, Interesting)
So that's gone MIA, then? What's the current obsession with removing menu bars, creating "ribbon" interfaces and taking away stuff that has served us well for over 20 years..?
Not sure I like the look of that new interface. Aint broke, don't fix it.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Menu Bar..? (Score:4, Insightful)
You can fit the menu bar, navigation buttons, address bar and search bar or even Google toolbar (don't ask) on one horizontal section saving tons of vertical space. See image:
http://i4.photobucket.com/albums/y113/benfenner/Firefoxmenubar.png?t=1273593698 [photobucket.com]
As long as I can still control how things look I should be happy. Give me a ribbon I can't turn off or re-configure (MS) or tabs I can't move down (Chrome?) and I'm not a happy camper. Make it configurable.
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Re:Menu Bar..? (Score:5, Insightful)
Is the menu bar really that useful? Apart from using it as a way to get to Preferences, I can't think of a single option that I use the Firefox menu bar for. Also, it takes up some screen area; on small screen devices it may be more optimal to drop the bar make the functions accessible from elsewhere.
Aint broke, don't fix it.
Maybe. On the other hand, Chrome has grabbed 20% market share in one year which is no small feat. There are reasons that people are switching to Chrome - allegedly quicker browsing and the user interface. It's worth experimenting with a similar approach in Firefox. Maybe it will work out, and maybe it won't, but if they don't try we will never know.
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Re:Menu Bar..? (Score:4, Informative)
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Re:Menu Bar..? (Score:4, Insightful)
No, dammit. Someone shoot this guy.
Options that are very specific to an object can be attached to that object’s right-click menu. The right-click menu for the page in Firefox is fine as it is. Mine already has a Reload Every option (added by my Tab Mix Plus addon, I think), View Page in Coral IE Tab, a DownloadHelper submenu, RefControl options for the site, and a ScreenGrab entry. Those are all options specific to the page that I’m viewing.
File, edit, and view are better served by keyboard shortcuts and/or mouse shortcuts (e.g. ctrl-scroll zoom).
History, bookmarks, preferences not specific to the page that I’m viewing, and help should not be cluttering up the right-click menu. Give me my menu bar and leave me alone.
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Re:Menu Bar..? (Score:5, Insightful)
I use Bookmarks menu to access and organise my bookmarks. I use the history menu to open tabs I've recently closed or go back to websites I've recently visited. I use the tools menu to access options, addons and clear history. I use the file menu for print, work offline and occasionally import.
In answer to your question then, yes the menu bar is very useful. It provides rapid and structured access to a lot of functionality. When I use an application with a menu bar I can always find the functionality I'm looking for easily but in applications without a menu bar (Office 2007, Chrome etc) I can never find what I'm looking for.
Menu bars provide a consistent interface across all applications so even if you haven't used an application before you know where to find options and featurs. Removing it gives every application a custom interface, making it very hard to use unfamiliar applications. Put a Office 2003 user in front of Office 2007 or an IE6 user in front of IE7/8 and and they'll struggle to use the application. However if you get an Office 2003 user to use Open Office or an IE6 user to use Firefox they'll be able to adapt very quickly thanks to the consistent interface menu bars offer.
When Microsoft started the trend of removing menu bars with Vista and Office 2007 I believe their aim was not to improve the user experience but to lock users into their applications. An Office 2003 user can adapt rapidly to any other Office suite thanks to the similar interfaces, however if someone is only familiar with Office 2007 it will be very hard for them to adapt to other suits because Office 2007 has a completely custom interface that is inconsistent with all other applications. This way they're locked into MS Office and Microsoft wins again.
The removal of the menu bar is a travesty of interface design but it's a massive win for Microsoft and, bizarrely, organisations such as Mozilla seem happy to help them along.
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UI (Score:4, Funny)
Perhaps the most striking change to Firefox 4 is the user interface...
There's a shocker.
The faster it will seem? (Score:4, Insightful)
Just because an interface looks simple doesn't mean it looks faster. Who thinks like that? The "Speed holes" reference" above is quite right. Those UI designers either have been misquoted or are just complete fools.
What a simple interface means is that common tasks should be more obvious to do.
Don't give the users 100 options at once, especially things that only power-users use only once in a while. I'm not a fan of putting options in tabs and sub-menus, but sometimes it's the right thing to do.
Put the basic features at the beginning, the most obscure ones at the bottom. Put them in named groups such as "Basic", "Advanced" and "Expert" if necessary, so that non-technical users aren't afraid to mess with the basic ones, and advanced users don't waste time looking for what they need in the basic and advanced options.
Thanks for nothing (Score:5, Insightful)
Great. That means I will be staying with the current version of Firefox for a long time. I just tried Chrome a few days ago and the user interface totally sucks. What is is with these people who have to fuck up a good design just so they can make it different and justify a new version number.
Video presentation. (Score:3, Informative)
For those who don't want to rtfa, there's a video presentation on the director of firefox, Mike Beltzners blog: http://videos.mozilla.org/serv/air_mozilla/firefox4.ogg [mozilla.org]
stop messing wih the UI (Score:4, Insightful)
its hard enough to convince users that the internet isnt the blue E on their desktop and use Firefox instead.
keep changing the UI and sure as dammit they will be back using the blue E,
it may take us geeks a couple of minutes/hours to get used to a new UI but the average user it takes forever and they want familiarity they dont want to hunt for that buried option or find the new print button, hell some people dont even know what a home button is! and they absolutely hate having to throw away the knowledge gained on learning an applications UI just for it to change again
Tweak the default UI slowly, very slowly.
and for the record Chrome's UI sucks like Fisher Price (an example in gone too far in dumbing down)
eg. removing https:/// [https] from the location bar after we (the security/it industry) have spent 25 years teaching people to look for it when signing into their bank/mail etc.
lets trash all that training and start again ? after all that business training is free right ?
and and people wonder why IE is standard in corporations ?
perhaps Mozilla should start working on aiding administrators (group policy options (have you seen IEs massive list?) /locking down functions/ automatic updates that are truly automatic and dont need user interaction etc)
instead of playing with fluff.
A.Dmin
Central Management Please! (Score:5, Insightful)
I'd love to switch our companies users to FF but having no way to centrally manage/monitor and update is a complete killer. There's no way we can have users with 10 different versions and different issues, etc. It's a nightmare. Give me a cool central control panel and have each browser be able to be hooked into it and it would be amazing.
Text highlight metaphor search must be improved. (Score:4, Interesting)
An example, you highlight "Give me" and it asks (Search for Give Me). This feature should be expanded via plugins, regular expression, and AI so that if I have Google open in another tab it can search for it within the Google search tab already open. This would save browser resources and make it a lot easier to manage tabs. I always leave a tab open to Google, Wikipedia, Slashdot and YouTube. Why not let me highlight text and select which site I want the text to search from? Why not use keyboard shortcuts so that I can highlight the text and hit "g" and it searches Google, "y" and it searches Youtube, "w" and it searches Wikipedia, or "d" for the dictionary if I don't know the word. And the plugin interface should allow regular expressions and individual programmers to code new features.
This plugin/extension interface would revolutionize the browsing experience because it would increase the amount of information the user can work with and take in at any given time. This should be the goal of Firefox. To help increase the amount of information users can handle rather than trying to merely simplify he interface without any known practical enhancements.
The application tab idea is good. That has a good function. But I want that application tab to be connected to the text highlight function of the browser. And then something like the pipes function in linux should be used to allow the highlighted text to be manipulated any which way and or used as input for the software applications. I should be able to highlight text on your post and have it to into my word processor application or email application as a direct quote with source citation included. This way I don't have to worry about managing the sources.
And there are a million other improvements we could probably think of that they aren't or don't seem to be considering. I hope the Firefox4 team reads this post and considers adding these features.
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Tips to make things seem faster (Score:5, Funny)
2) Add some motion blur when scrolling a page.
3) Lower your desk. Generally, the closer to the floor you are the faster it seems. I am using go karts as an example.
4) Make ALL youtube videos play at 2x speed except for videos about rival browsers, which shall be played at 0.5x.
THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU... (Score:4, Insightful)
FINALLY.
Never again will I be alert-bombed.
(I looked for an add-on to change script alerts, confirms, and prompts into something non-modal. I couldn’t find anything.)
Re:Retarded (Score:4, Insightful)
"the simpler an interface looks, the faster it will seem". What a joke.
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Re:Retarded (Score:5, Insightful)
It's pretty obvious what the man means. An application with a simple user interface works much nicer than an application with a UI that's littered with ambiguously labeled buttons and hidden menus. If you have to click 4 times to get something done, an application will feel (seem/look/whatever) slow compared to when you can do that in one single click as well.
One thing I hope is that "silently updating in the background" doesn't mean there will be some sort of "Firefox updater.exe" service loaded in the background when I start up my PC. I hate it when applications do that.
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Re:Retarded (Score:4, Insightful)
Yes, because increasing user satisfaction shouldn't be an objective for a browser which is constantly trying to increase its market share...
Much like the story of people complaining about elevators taking too long to arrive, and the installation of mirrors stopped the complaints, this is much the same. If users perceive the browser to be faster, then that is just as important as it being faster from a user satisfaction point of view.
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Re:Retarded (Score:4, Interesting)
increasing user satisfaction
I'd suggest improving usability then. The shiny only works until you start to use it. You know, like how the CLI completely wipes the floor with any GUI when it comes to power users' needs.
Just for starters, why isn't "Open in background tab" the default when clicking a link? Chances are you didn't mean to watch a blank fucking screen while it's loading.
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Re:Retarded (Score:5, Insightful)
If you don't understand the difference between perceived performance and actual raw performance, and how the former can frequently be more important than the latter, then I'm guessing you haven't had to deliver a complex user interface based product before.
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Re:Retarded (Score:5, Funny)
You've got to admit, lynx seems pretty fast these days.
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Re:Retarded (Score:5, Informative)
It doesn't help that the linked article is terrible. A whole pile of performance updates are being made in addition to the UI changes:
JagerMonkey
HTML5 Parser off main thread
64 bit support
Startup timeline optimizations
Reduced I/O operations on main thread
JS threads and GC
DOM Performance improvements
Layers for compositing, scrolling
+
Graphics compositing with Layers
Hardware acceleration using Direct3D
Multitouch support
Aero Peek integration
OSX integration
I'd suggest reading the actual presentation for more information:
http://beltzner.ca/mike/2010/05/10/firefox-4-fast-powerful-and-empowering/ [beltzner.ca]
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Re:Retarded (Score:5, Interesting)
That might be a good idea. It looks like Firefox 4 is going to be a "chrome-ified" (or you could say "Apple-fied") "just make it work, I don't like thinking" browser, rather than the moddable and utilitarian browser it's been up to this point. Now seems like a good point to fork it to preserve the "geekiness" of 3.6.
I sure don't like the new "background updates" idea either (as a default, I'd be fine with it as an optional setting), if anything Firefox needs to bug me MORE about updates, like when Microsoft wants to sneak an addon into it via Internet Explorer. The next time I open Firefox, it should say "WARNING: This addon was installed without your express permission. Allow/Disable/Uninstall?"
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Re:Retarded (Score:5, Funny)
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Re:Retarded (Score:5, Funny)
4 will crash and burn. We need a successor to rise from the ashes. We could call it Phoenix.
Alas, that name is already taken. Maybe we could call it Firebird instead!
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Re:Finally surf the WWW with FFF (Score:5, Informative)
You're probably thinking of "Fox Force Five", from Pulp Fiction
http://www.whysanity.net/monos/fox.html [whysanity.net]
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Re:Finally surf the WWW with FFF (Score:4, Funny)
Ketchup!
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Re:Hundrerds of tabs? (Score:4, Funny)
Seriously...if you have 100s of tabs open, you have ADD or you need to learn to let go of your tabs. Relax. Close them. They'll still be there when you wake up.
So will the ADD ;-(
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Re:Hundrerds of tabs? (Score:4, Insightful)
Or you use open tabs as your todo list.
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