I Like Firefox 4.

Greg F. · Post by **Greg F.** » Tue Mar 22, 2011 2:55 pm

It is definitely faster than any other browser. YMMV. It also reminds me of Opera.

andyb · Post by **andyb** » Wed Mar 23, 2011 9:40 am

So will I when someone brings out a skin for it so that it looks just like FF 3.

The first thing I did with it was to make the menu bar appear, then to make the tabs disapear, and the to bookmark my homepage and put it on the far left of the quick launch bar so I now have a "Home" button on the left as well as all the way over there, in the distance on the right.

Whether it is faster or not I cant say, it does not seem to be any faster so far, but TBH, I have only been to Google, and here.

Now off to browse the web and see if it really is any better, or whether all of my optimisations have been wrecked when it was installed - if so, that would explain why it didnt seem any faster.

Andy

Post by **NeilBlanchard** » Wed Mar 23, 2011 10:36 am

I've been using Firefox 4 for a little less than a day, now (since I read this thread yesterday), and so far so good. I don't think it is as fast as Chrome, but it is a bit faster than v3.6.

andyb · Post by **andyb** » Wed Mar 23, 2011 11:08 am

so far so good. I don't think it is as fast as Chrome, but it is a bit faster than v3.6.

Maybe its not as fast as Chrome, but thats not that important to me, the simple fact that it is NOT Chrome is a reason to celebrate in my opinion, I simply dont like the interface, speed comes second in my opinion as FF3.6 was already "fast", "slightly faster" really does not make much difference.

I will see how I get along with FF4 for a few days, and maybe I will have a look at the hidden settings to see if they have changed stuff.

Also I will try and find a way of getting rid of the "open in new tab" option on context menu's, that might be the end of FF4 if it continues to annoy me.

Why cant these companies just get the point, one reason why Windows is good because you can do the same thing in different ways, and you can customise things to your preferences, when will they understand that "I want to do things my way" not theirs, I dont use tabs, I want all mention of tabs to vanish, where is the "make tabs sod-off" option.?

Andy

andymcca · Post by **andymcca** » Wed Mar 23, 2011 11:38 am

andyb wrote:Why cant these companies just get the point, one reason why Windows is good because you can do the same thing in different ways,

Like when I found out there were two multiplicative microphone volumes in two totally different menus, one of which was buried in some poorly named button in some poorly named control panel app. Good thing one of them defaulted to 0, so I couldn't get the mic to work for an hour.

Also, I kind of hate the _lack_ of windows UI customization. Everything is 3rd party

I agree though, as long as it works and the UI is friendly (i.e. not stupid ribbons), I am a happy camper. "Speed" has more to do with my connection latency and bandwidth to me.

fumino · Post by **fumino** » Wed Mar 23, 2011 12:04 pm

i also like it.

tim851 · Post by **tim851** » Wed Mar 23, 2011 12:17 pm

andymcca wrote:"Speed" has more to do with my connection latency and bandwidth to me.

Same here. All these browser benchmarks that show how Chrome loads some complex website from a hard disk twice as fast as the competition are completely meaningless to me. FF 3.6 is fast enough for me. In regular usage, I see no difference in speed to other browsers. I will switch to FF4 when all my beloved add-ons have been updated or when I find the time to find replacements.

andyb · Post by **andyb** » Wed Mar 23, 2011 1:08 pm

That is by far the shortest lived FF update that I have had on my computer.

All that is left for me to do to change it back to exactly how it was before is to remove the shitty "tasks" that now appears when I right click on FF in the quick launch bar (W7), I have changed everything back to how it was, although I had to go a whole extra step beyond what I had expected. A simple un-install/re-install is not enough. You need to backup your bookmarks, un-install, tell it not to remember any settings etc, then delete the folder that FF was installed to, I then ran CCleaner and the registry component as well, I then re-installed FF, ABP, the element hider, re-instated my bookmarks, got rid of the pants search bar, reset my homepage, went into about:config and disabled HDD cache and added RAM cache instead, now I just need to get rid or the crappy and pointless "tasks". I am not impressed - that wasted 10-minutes of my life.

Although I didnt find what I wanted, I did find this link which was useful, I removed a program that was in my right-click context meny for many file types - the program was removed months ago.

http://www.winvistaclub.com/e11.html

Andy

andyb · Post by **andyb** » Wed Mar 23, 2011 1:25 pm

I just tried something on a hunch and it worked.

I simply closed all FF windows, un-pinned it from the task bar, opened it up from a desktop icon, right clicked and re-pinned it, and the bullcrap has gone

Andy

porkchop · Post by **porkchop** » Wed Mar 23, 2011 2:42 pm

i've been switching between ff4 and chrome.
an interesting thing i noticed was when loading a heavy site like engadget, firefox would let me scroll while still loading the page, but chrome seemed to freeze the scroll until the whole page was loaded... bizzare.
i'm happy to use either since they both have adblocking extensions, but the chrome ui is really starting to grow on me.

andyb · Post by **andyb** » Wed Mar 23, 2011 2:51 pm

the chrome ui is really starting to grow on me

Warts can grow on you as well. I have never liked that phrase - even though I find myself using it

Andy

porkchop · Post by **porkchop** » Wed Mar 23, 2011 3:43 pm

is that supposed to be thinly veiled insult?

we're not really gonna start arguing about personal preference are we?

andyb · Post by **andyb** » Wed Mar 23, 2011 4:16 pm

is that supposed to be thinly veiled insult?

Of course not, if I wanted to be insulting I wouldnt bother with a veil at all. And just to be clear - I meant no insult at all, please read on.

It was a pointless comment because I obviously failed to make it into a point, so I will have another go.

the chrome ui is really starting to grow on me.

The way I see this is as follows, you didnt really like the interface, but you are either beginning to get used to it (or even like it), or have got used to it enough to be able to appreciate its finer qualities (speed).

This is akin to someone saying "it's an acquired taste". This means that the person didnt "like" it straight away, but they slowly liked it. e.g. "after drinking 5 G&T's Dave decided that he had aquired the taste".

I only like the interface of one browser, that is FF3, I can and have to use all of the browsers on the market, and none of them have grabbed my attention like FF has. And due to the fact that I am perfectly happy with FF3.6 I shall not attempt to "acquire" the taste of another browser, although FF4 might "grow on me" as I expect that I will end up using it a lot on other peoples machines, but there is no interest there for me at the moment due to the points above - when those points are addressed I may change over to using FF4 - or even Chrome if someone can tell me how to change the interface to mimic that of FF3.

I am perfectly happy to change my usage habits when it suits me, I can work with tabs but I dont like to, I can work with the W7 interface because I can change it enough to not annoy me, and still gain the benefits that W7 brings - hence W7 is with some modification to my liking. When similar modification turns up for FF4 or Chrome there is a good chance that I will go that route.

BTW, I am not at all unhappy that I tried out FF4, and found some issues, because its better to know them sooner rather than later - which reminds me, I must try Internet Exploder 9, the question is on what PC.? Probably on an image, so that I can then just wipe the drive so it doesnt pollute any of my machines that are and will stay entirely void of IE - even the XP machine, and the 2K3 server.

Please note readers - this is my personal opinion and my personal taste, others will be different and I respect that. I hope other people enjoy FF4 more than i did.

And finally.

we're not really gonna start arguing about personal preference are we?

I really hope not. Pointing out benefits, or problems, modifications, add-ons etc is the way to go. I am all for suggestions, help, advice and so on, as well as plain and simple points of view such as "I think IE's positioning of the "home button" is moronic and I am happy to know that it is very easy to move in FF" that is what I would like to see, something that is useful to others - arguments about personal preference without this detail is pointless.

Andy

porkchop · Post by **porkchop** » Wed Mar 23, 2011 5:06 pm

fair enough, maybe i'm just sensitive in the morning.

and you are correct, i used nothing but firefox for a long time. the other night for no apparent reason i installed chrome and have been using it since, i've tweaked the ui on both browsers and chrome is just that little bit closer to being 'perfect' for me.

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