Firefox 4 RC1 Released

IgnitusBoyone writes "Mozilla has now released Firefox 4 RC1. For most beta participants the update should be automatic, but for those holding out until it gets closer to feature freeze, now is likely a good time to test the next major release. Aside from a complete redesign of the user interface, Firefox 4 offers several new features (release notes) including an integrated sync manager, improved methods for tab-switching and organization for tab-heavy users."

UI is still sluggish

[devxo]

It looks like they made Firefox look exactly like Chrome. However, there is one problem - Firefox's UI still feels sluggish, just like before. Personally I love how fast Opera's UI is and it makes the browser feel lightweight too. Chrome is close to that, but both IE and Firefox lag behind. Maybe it's XUL or something else, but it needs to be improved.

Oh yeah, and Firefox is the only browser that doesn't support H.264 even if it's installed in the system. How am I supposed to watch those HTML5 H.264 videos?

FF4 vs. Chrome... Use both

[Anonymous Coward]

I've been using FF4 since about beta 7. I really hope they got the stability issues fixed, especially with Tab Candy, which has been quite glitchy for me during the betas.

Chrome still *feels* snappier, but the JavaScript tests I performed showed them about equal for the most part.

Chrome's WebGL is faster, but glitchier (re-draw issues with non-webgl components on the screen?).

Either way, it's an awesome product. I use FF4 and Chrome daily, so it's not like I am "choosing" one or the other. Both are stellar products.

And ultimately, I feel more comfortable with FF4, because it's not produced by an advertising company.

Tabs!

[bulletman]

Please let new tabs open alongside the current tab! With a bunch of tabs, it makes navigation between the parent and child tab so much easier.

Re:Feature Bloat

[Hatta]

For that matter, Firefox 2.x was just about as feature complete as you'd want a browser to be. All they really needed to do was fix the memory issues and keep the rendering engine up to date, but I guess we can't have nice things.

Re:UI is still sluggish

[binarylarry]

The iPhone and Blackberry were the top two smartphone plans... until the open Android system destroyed them in the market place in record time.

Re:Feature Bloat

[Sonny Yatsen]

Firefox suffers from its constant desire to meet or beat Chrome and the gajillion UI features Google throws into the browser every other day. It's too bad, really, because it's gone way off-mission. I'll still use it over Chrome, any day (because I don't trust a company that makes its money by tracking my web movements and my web browsing habits to keep its mitts off of my web movements and browsing habits), but I don't recommend Firefox as enthusiastically as I used to back in the day.

Re:Tabs!

[maxume]

Did they change it again? In 3.x, browser.tabs.insertRelatedAfterCurrent is true by default.