10 ms·

Mozilla delays Firefox 4 release until 2011

19 points by andre3k1 16y ago

Malic 16y ago
Very disappointing but better a little late than very buggy. If any Moz Foundation folks linger around HN, my disappointment comes from how excited I am for FF 4 to arrive!)
- corin_ 16y ago
  Where did that closing parenthesis appear from?
ditoa 16y ago
I think this is a good thing. I tried Beta 6 just a few hours a go and it is full of issues that stopped me getting back to a workable state (using Firefox Sync). Reverted to 3 and all is good again. They still have some kinks to iron out I guess.
drivebyacct2 16y ago
Seeing as they have yet to make any improvements to the Linux interface, I'm willing to go right on with my current assumption. Chrome is the place to be.
- jim_h 16y ago
  Firefox extensions will keep me using it for a while until Chrome or IE can do better. Firebug, Adblock Plus, NoScript, CS Lite (cookie management) and probably a couple others make my browsing/development much nicer/easier.
  - drivebyacct2 16y ago
    Chrome is faster enough than firefox that the pseudo adblock plus is more than sufficient and Chrome's built in dev tools easily rival Firebug. Not sure if there's cookie management, but then again, I run CCleaner regularly with just a few cookies exempted.
thepumpkin1979 16y ago
In the meanwhile Google Chrome is gaining more and more usage share... isn't that the way IE dominated the market? Netscape delayed the versions because they were creating a super Netscape Browser/Navigator?
- alanh 16y ago
  Chrome bumps version numbers for almost no reason. Not that that’s bad, but I don’t think release frequency was the biggest reason IE beat out Netscape. Consider the 5+ years between IE6 and IE7 where IE6 was still 80% of the market, for example…
  - thepumpkin1979 16y ago
    Well I disagree man, this was the last release of chrome on October 19, 2010: http://googlechromereleases.blogspot.com/2010/10/stable-channel-update.html http://googlechromereleases.blogspot.com/2010/10/stable-chan... ... now Firefox, January 21st, 2010(it's been a while huh?) http://www.mozilla.com/en-US/firefox/3.6/releasenotes/ http://www.mozilla.com/en-US/firefox/3.6/releasenotes/ but is not only about the release time, look at the features, I can see more innovation in Chrome than Firefox and more faster.
ashish01 16y ago
Is it just me or is Firefox's quality actually degrading ? I have been using Firefox since 1.0 and it was a really welcome change compared to IE. But now compared to Chrome * Its load times are ridiculously high compared to Chrome * Sometimes when my netflix window freezes up, it takes down the whole browser with it (though I know its running in a separate process) * Opening downthemall's manager window makes for whole browser unresponsive for a few seconds * Detaching a tab reloads it (unlike chrome or ie9) The only reason I still use firefox is because of firebug and downthemall.
- aberkowitz 16y ago
  It depends which version of Firefox you are talking about, but based upon 4.08Pre which I am currently running - Load times are fast and javascript speed is very similar, if not better than Chrome [1] Currently, only the mobile version of Firefox will have tab separation in the form of the electrolysis project for the upcoming version. Plugins do currently run independently of the browser process. Extensions in Firefox are a lot more powerful; they can slow things down and cause memory leaks. In the latest prerelease, pages and their plugins do not reload when detached. [1] http://arewefastyet.com http://arewefastyet.com edit: Disabling the javascript features of firebug allows Firefox to use its jit tracing leading to faster javascript speeds.
- icegreentea 16y ago
  I'm using ff4b6 right now. Firefox's page loading speed (especially with ff4b) isn't actually noticeably slower on most sites than Chrome. Until Mr Flash and other plugins come around. That's probably what makes FF feel so horrible right now. Flash video just kills FF performance (just having the video paused in another tab) like nothing else. They seriously need to fix the flash problem. Having flash crash and bringing down my whole browser sucks. Aside from that, downthemall's problem is the plug in itself. There's definitely something wrong with how the plug in is written, not FF itself. And I believe FF4 tears tabs correctly now.
  - treyp 16y ago
    > Having flash crash and bringing down my whole browser sucks. haven't OOPPs (out of process plugins) been released since ff3.6?
Qz 16y ago
This makes sense -- I'm still on Beta 6 despite the bugginess, but it definitely is buggy. I keep trying to customize the button layout (like adding a history button, or moving the new tab button) and it mysteriously reverts parts of the layout to default when I change it, but not every time, and not every button. Odd. Also, Windows Live Mail is nearly unuseable. The main reason I'm sticking with it for now is Panorama. Bound the hotkey for that to one of my extra mouse buttons (mine has ~9). As far as I'm concerned there's no other way to do tabs/grouping anymore. The big thing I wish they'd do is lazy load the tab groups that weren't active the last time it got closed. I have about 10 tabs open now at all times, and it doesn't make sense to try to load them all at once. Panorama could basically merge tabs/bookmarks/history all in one and revolutionize the UI, but for now it's still awesome but kind of slow. edit: I just turned on HW acceleration (windows only sorry), and the performance boost is pretty amazing.
- tiles 16y ago
  I have been using "Firefox 4.0b8pre" (with Jaegermonkey!) for weeks. It's really been a pleasant experience, fast load times, nice UI, and few if any major bugs. Perhaps I just caught a good nightly, but nonetheless, this news then comes as surprising to me. I worry about delaying the Firefox release until next year (where FF4 seems as much about catching up to the competition as it is new features), but if it allows this chart to cross the green line, then I'd say that would be some huge bragging rights: http://arewefastyet.com/ http://arewefastyet.com/
  - Qz 16y ago
    I'm not sure what threshold of bugginess would need to be crossed before I give up this Panorama feature, but it's pretty damn high.
  - instcode 16y ago
    I'm also using Minefield 4.0b8pre as my primary browser and always look for new "nightly" update with hoping it solves the annoying bug: location bar doesn't synchronize with the displaying page/tab. Other than that, FF 4 has a very nice looking UI and it's fast.
wh-uws 16y ago
I understand FF 4 beta 6 is crashing like mad on me :( I've had to use chrome for most of my browsing because 3 is too slow now that I've tried 4 but every time my laptop goes to sleep and also randomly throughout the day it crashes. I'm a pretty heavy user though I keep 30 - 40+ tabs open on the regular
wooptoo 16y ago
By the time they release Firefox 4, it will become totally irrelevant.

19 points by andre3k1 16y ago

Malic 16y ago

Very disappointing but better a little late than very buggy. If any Moz Foundation folks linger around HN, my disappointment comes from how excited I am for FF 4 to arrive!)

corin_ 16y ago
Where did that closing parenthesis appear from?

ditoa 16y ago

I think this is a good thing. I tried Beta 6 just a few hours a go and it is full of issues that stopped me getting back to a workable state (using Firefox Sync). Reverted to 3 and all is good again. They still have some kinks to iron out I guess.

drivebyacct2 16y ago

Seeing as they have yet to make any improvements to the Linux interface, I'm willing to go right on with my current assumption. Chrome is the place to be.

jim_h 16y ago
Firefox extensions will keep me using it for a while until Chrome or IE can do better. Firebug, Adblock Plus, NoScript, CS Lite (cookie management) and probably a couple others make my browsing/development much nicer/easier.
- drivebyacct2 16y ago
  Chrome is faster enough than firefox that the pseudo adblock plus is more than sufficient and Chrome's built in dev tools easily rival Firebug. Not sure if there's cookie management, but then again, I run CCleaner regularly with just a few cookies exempted.

thepumpkin1979 16y ago

In the meanwhile Google Chrome is gaining more and more usage share... isn't that the way IE dominated the market? Netscape delayed the versions because they were creating a super Netscape Browser/Navigator?

alanh 16y ago
Chrome bumps version numbers for almost no reason. Not that that’s bad, but I don’t think release frequency was the biggest reason IE beat out Netscape. Consider the 5+ years between IE6 and IE7 where IE6 was still 80% of the market, for example…
- thepumpkin1979 16y ago
  Well I disagree man, this was the last release of chrome on October 19, 2010: http://googlechromereleases.blogspot.com/2010/10/stable-channel-update.html http://googlechromereleases.blogspot.com/2010/10/stable-chan... ... now Firefox, January 21st, 2010(it's been a while huh?) http://www.mozilla.com/en-US/firefox/3.6/releasenotes/ http://www.mozilla.com/en-US/firefox/3.6/releasenotes/ but is not only about the release time, look at the features, I can see more innovation in Chrome than Firefox and more faster.

ashish01 16y ago

Is it just me or is Firefox's quality actually degrading ? I have been using Firefox since 1.0 and it was a really welcome change compared to IE. But now compared to Chrome * Its load times are ridiculously high compared to Chrome * Sometimes when my netflix window freezes up, it takes down the whole browser with it (though I know its running in a separate process) * Opening downthemall's manager window makes for whole browser unresponsive for a few seconds * Detaching a tab reloads it (unlike chrome or ie9) The only reason I still use firefox is because of firebug and downthemall.

aberkowitz 16y ago
It depends which version of Firefox you are talking about, but based upon 4.08Pre which I am currently running - Load times are fast and javascript speed is very similar, if not better than Chrome [1] Currently, only the mobile version of Firefox will have tab separation in the form of the electrolysis project for the upcoming version. Plugins do currently run independently of the browser process. Extensions in Firefox are a lot more powerful; they can slow things down and cause memory leaks. In the latest prerelease, pages and their plugins do not reload when detached. [1] http://arewefastyet.com http://arewefastyet.com edit: Disabling the javascript features of firebug allows Firefox to use its jit tracing leading to faster javascript speeds.
icegreentea 16y ago
I'm using ff4b6 right now. Firefox's page loading speed (especially with ff4b) isn't actually noticeably slower on most sites than Chrome. Until Mr Flash and other plugins come around. That's probably what makes FF feel so horrible right now. Flash video just kills FF performance (just having the video paused in another tab) like nothing else. They seriously need to fix the flash problem. Having flash crash and bringing down my whole browser sucks. Aside from that, downthemall's problem is the plug in itself. There's definitely something wrong with how the plug in is written, not FF itself. And I believe FF4 tears tabs correctly now.
- treyp 16y ago
  > Having flash crash and bringing down my whole browser sucks. haven't OOPPs (out of process plugins) been released since ff3.6?

Qz 16y ago

This makes sense -- I'm still on Beta 6 despite the bugginess, but it definitely is buggy. I keep trying to customize the button layout (like adding a history button, or moving the new tab button) and it mysteriously reverts parts of the layout to default when I change it, but not every time, and not every button. Odd. Also, Windows Live Mail is nearly unuseable. The main reason I'm sticking with it for now is Panorama. Bound the hotkey for that to one of my extra mouse buttons (mine has ~9). As far as I'm concerned there's no other way to do tabs/grouping anymore. The big thing I wish they'd do is lazy load the tab groups that weren't active the last time it got closed. I have about 10 tabs open now at all times, and it doesn't make sense to try to load them all at once. Panorama could basically merge tabs/bookmarks/history all in one and revolutionize the UI, but for now it's still awesome but kind of slow. edit: I just turned on HW acceleration (windows only sorry), and the performance boost is pretty amazing.

tiles 16y ago
I have been using "Firefox 4.0b8pre" (with Jaegermonkey!) for weeks. It's really been a pleasant experience, fast load times, nice UI, and few if any major bugs. Perhaps I just caught a good nightly, but nonetheless, this news then comes as surprising to me. I worry about delaying the Firefox release until next year (where FF4 seems as much about catching up to the competition as it is new features), but if it allows this chart to cross the green line, then I'd say that would be some huge bragging rights: http://arewefastyet.com/ http://arewefastyet.com/
- Qz 16y ago
  I'm not sure what threshold of bugginess would need to be crossed before I give up this Panorama feature, but it's pretty damn high.
- instcode 16y ago
  I'm also using Minefield 4.0b8pre as my primary browser and always look for new "nightly" update with hoping it solves the annoying bug: location bar doesn't synchronize with the displaying page/tab. Other than that, FF 4 has a very nice looking UI and it's fast.

wh-uws 16y ago

I understand FF 4 beta 6 is crashing like mad on me :( I've had to use chrome for most of my browsing because 3 is too slow now that I've tried 4 but every time my laptop goes to sleep and also randomly throughout the day it crashes. I'm a pretty heavy user though I keep 30 - 40+ tabs open on the regular

wooptoo 16y ago

By the time they release Firefox 4, it will become totally irrelevant.