So, I finally upgraded to Firefox 4 today.

[BC_Programmer]

Well, What I mean is I upgraded to Firefox 4 on my windows machine, I've been using Minefield 4.2 on my laptop for a while and it didn't give me computing indigestion so I figured I ought to update my main machine as well.

And I do realize that immediately when FF4 was released there where a lot of threads on this and all that, but those are now nothing but a dim memory. In computer time, anyway. So with that in mind my thoughts on the update process itself.

FIRST: OK, I hate the tabs on top thing, I think it's a crime against any semblance of sanity and consistency to put tabs in the title bar, etc. you all know the drill there, but those are movable, no problem there. But I thought the entire point of moving the tabs was to save space? When I first started FF4 for the first time, THIS* was what I saw.

Now, for the record, I had quite a few addons installed, previously, which explains some of the toolbars, although to be fair I had those toolbars disabled so why FF4 decided that my FF 3.6.17 preferences were wholly irrelevant I cannot explain. Easily remedied, of course. First, I decided "hey, I know, I'll disable the Ask Toolbar!" particularly since I didn't have it installed at all before the update. Obviously the new update decided that I wanted the Ask Toolbar. I believe the actual setup program gives a choice, I wasn't given a choice.

I think the thing I find most screwed up is the fact that in that configuration, right at start up, it's using <more> screen real estate for the crap at the top then FF 3.6.17. I see that the FF developers working on the Windows stuff finally wrapped their head around the DwmExtendFrameIntoClientArea and DwmEnableBlurBehindWindow functions, both of which I've used perfectly fine from VB6 for quite a while (to be fair I don't really like the "let's put glass in the client area" idea except when well executed. Windows Explorer? Yes, well done. Firefox 4's top area? Not so much.

For one, I didn't have the ASK toolbar installed. There was no prompt, so presumably the FF4 updater decided to "make my browsing experience better" by forcing it on me. Oh well, so into the addons page thing I go. Looks pretty nice. Doesn't seem like it's all that different functionality-wise so I'm not really sure how they justify the development time, but hey, that's  Open Source for you, I guess. I any case, so I go through the addons I have installl...

what the heck? Every single addin that I had installed in firefox 3.6.17 but had disabled, one of which being the skype extension for security issues that firefox kept complaining about (and in fact was doing in that very "dialog") suddenly were re-enabled again. Again, no matter, just have to sort through it all. Not  sure why they would all be reenabled, that just seems- odd. A curious omission, really. All my bookmarks and saved passwords are there, why not some of my preferences regardings addons, fonts, and so forth? I can give a pass to the toolbar layout not being preserved because they added a new one (Although that in and of itself is a horse of a different color) Kind of why I was apprehensive about this to begin with, but oh well. Anyway, so I go to disable the Ask toolbar.



haha.... admittedly not really Firefox's fault but more the cheeseheads who created the toolbar extension and decided "hey, what do we call it" I know, let's just return a null string! GENIUS!".

All in all and now that I've spent a few minutes to redo the work to reset the configurations of a few things that FF4 decided to blissfully ignore, it's really not that bad. Except for one thing, and although I will freely admit to not reading a lot about FF4 issues aside from those more serious ones... but what is with the text? I don't know if it's just me but it sure seems like they are using some goofy weird font smoothing of their own. Particularly noticable in the menus. It probably just reset a few of those settings.

Even so I must say that I probably won't be bothered to go back to 3.6.xx; it's simply not worth the trouble. And really, it's just a matter of setting appropriate preferences. I certainly don't dislike it overall, it's just a few "niggly bits" basically.



*Also, IGNORE THE BOOKMARK on the far right. Seriously, it's not mine... I'm.... holding it for a friend....

[Allan]

I'm back to 3.6 and sticking with it.

[BC_Programmer]

I'm back to 3.6 and sticking with it.

If I can't find a good solution to this weird font rendering issue, I may actually do that. I only thought it was a minor problem but it's driving me insane.

Supposedly it's related to the hardware acceleration. That is a joke in and of itself, really. Hopefully disabling it and restarting FF will fix it for me.

So far I've not really noticed any extra memory usage. Aside from the font rendering make me feel like I have astigmatism it's working rather well.

[Allan]

Yeah, I didn't care for the fonts in the tabs. Turned hw acceleration on and off - made no difference. But I had a problem with a significant lag when switching among certain tabs. It occurred on multiple machines so I have to believe it's an issue with the program.

[Broni]

I hate the tabs on top thing

Tabs can be easily moved to their previous location by unchecking "Tabs on top" option (right click on any tab bar empty space).

Firefox does NOT install any Ask toolbar. You got it from somewhere else.

[Salmon Trout]

1. Why do N. Americans feel obliged to prefix statements with "So,"?
2. I've been using Firefox 4 without any problems whatsoever for about a month now. I'm on v4.01. Am I missing something?
3. I found a nice theme called "Firefox 3 theme for Firefox 4++",

[Broni]

I've been using Firefox 4 without any problems whatsoever for about a month now

I've been using it since beta 5, or 6 without any problems either.

[Salmon Trout]

I didn't care for the fonts in the tabs.

This is whatever the Message Box font is that you chose in your display settings, as far as I can see. It is used for quite a lot of things if Firefox, as you (hopefully) can see...

[Allan]

1. Why do N. Americans feel obliged to prefix statements with "So,"?

For the past couple of years I've noticed that many Americans start sentences with "So" - including highly intelligent people. Drives me nuts.

[Salmon Trout]

For the past couple of years I've noticed that many Americans start sentences with "So" - including highly intelligent people. Drives me nuts.

They do it a lot on CH. In a year or two, it'll cross the Atlantic. Mark my words.

[Allan]

I even hear it on television from talking heads, physicians, etc. Not sure when or where or why it began, but it has spread like wildfire in the past two or so years. My undergrad is in English and while I understand not everyone cares as much about proper usage as do I, this is one linguistic peculiarity I simply don't get.

[rthompson80819]

For the past couple of years I've noticed that many Americans start sentences with "So" - including highly intelligent people. Drives me nuts.

Personally, I don't care, but check out the definition and useage from dictionary.com.  The second example of using it as an adverb starts the sentence with so.

http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/so

[rthompson80819]

Also check out this. It may have started across the pond a long time ago.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/So,_we%27ll_go_no_more_a_roving

[Computer_Commando]

1. Why do N. Americans feel obliged to prefix statements with "So,"?
2. I've been using Firefox 4 without any problems whatsoever for about a month now. I'm on v4.01. Am I missing something?
3. I found a nice theme called "Firefox 3 theme for Firefox 4++",

1.  Let's not forget "Basically".
2.  Only a few for me which 4.01 seems to have remedied.  Still would like Google Toolbar Extension for FF to be fully functional.
3.  Install this theme if you don't like the look of FF4.x

[Salmon Trout]

1.  Let's not forget "Basically".
2.  Only a few for me which 4.01 seems to have remedied.  Still would like Google Toolbar Extension for FF to be fully functional.
3.  Install this theme if you don't like the look of FF4.x

1. Starting an isolated statement with "So" looks odd to me (I suppose) because I am used to that word being used as a co-ordinating conjunction to join parts of a sentence - I am sick today so I'm not going to work. Mother doesn't like fish so we won't have red snapper for dinner. What it is, I think, is an example of being conversational in writing. There are various attention-getting or pause-creating utterances that people use in speech to begin a statement such as "well", "er", "hey!!!!" etc. and yes "basically". I hear "obviously" a lot and I don't like it one bit. People here in the UK generally don't use "so" very often, except perhaps for those who watch lots of US television programmes. (The abominable "Friends" has a lot to answer for.) You might use it to introduce a question if you wish to convey that it arises from something you have noticed or deduced - So you're going out? (I see you have your hat and coat on) Incidentally there is an acronym to remember these little  conjunctions: FANBOYS (!) For-And-Nor-But-Or-Yet-So. Don't use FANBOIS or you'll get confuzzlified.

2. I should have said I had started with 4.00 and I never had a problem with that either once I got the appearance how I wanted it. Did I mention the "Backward/Forward History Dropdown" Firefox 4 extension?

http://kuix.de/mozilla/backforedrop/



(Although in FF 4 you can just right click the buttons to see the same thing)

I suppose my approach with Firefox versions has always been that the default appearance - theme, toolbar contents, etc that come when it is first installed - is just a starting point for me to fiddle about with. Also I don't seem to have hit the performance and stability issues that have clearly irritated many users, as a quick Google reveals. I don't know if this may be partly due to me just being lucky with the mix of extensions I have, and perhaps my video hardware & drivers (Nvidia GeForce 8200 onboard).