8 ms·

Lets say I'm a chrome user (and loving it), is Firefox4 worth a try? What are the main differences from the last version?

by d0m 16y ago

Dobbs 16y ago
The Tab Candy (http://www.azarask.in/blog/post/tabcandy/ http://www.azarask.in/blog/post/tabcandy/) feature is pretty cool. The big thing about Firefox is the Addons: FireBug, NoScript, Adblock Plus, and Pentadactyl (was known as Vimperator) all add up to a fantastic experience. With Firefox 4 I get the fantastic experience with something much closer to Chrome's speed and tab usability. I don't know if I would say Firefox 4 is quite there yet but it is much much closer.
- eftpotrm 16y ago
  I'm curious; in what way do you prefer Chrome's tab handling? For me it's one of the worst things about Chrome; this window currently has ten tabs open and that's at the _very_ low end for me. With Firefox I can see what I've got open no matter how many I've got because of the pop-down list and the scrolling bar, while Chrome just mashes the list into invisibility.
  - darklajid 16y ago
    Also - Tree Style Tab [1] is a must have for me (on 3.x for now, just checking if I'll upgrade now or wait for some of my plugins to migrate first) 1: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/tree-style-tab/ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/tree-style-ta...
    - eapen 16y ago
      I just plugged this in another reply. The latest and greatest can be found at the author's site. btw... TabCandy is now called Panorama.
    - dairem 16y ago
      Yes, I'm using Tree Style Tabs on FF4 now, it's fantastic once you go over 20 or so tabs.
      - mistermann 16y ago
        Do you have no issues with it on 4? Mine is very buggy, won't open child (or any other) tabs properly, they open non-visible.
    - holygoat 16y ago
      Give Vertical Tabs a shot. It's faster, albeit no tree handling. https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/vertical-tabs/ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/vertical-tabs...
  - rufugee 16y ago
    Here here. Chrome's tab handling is a nightmare. I hope FF4 will give me a reason to switch back and get access to what should be simple things (vertical tab lists) but appear to be difficult to provide in Chrome.
    - philikon 16y ago
      For a fast and simple vertical tabs implementation, see https://addons.mozilla.org/firefox/addon/vertical-tabs/ https://addons.mozilla.org/firefox/addon/vertical-tabs/
  - Dobbs 16y ago
    The big thing is just the smoothness of handling tabs. Closing a group of tabs in Chrome is a pleasure because of how it moves the tabs when you close one. Also grabbing a tab and moving it into a new window is a very clean/smooth operation. Firefox has improved a lot. 4 is a fantastic piece of software but it isn't quite as polished as Chrome is. Despite these issues I greatly prefer Firefox over Chrome. Chrome might be more polished but Firefox is (imho) a much more powerful piece of software and at the end of the day I care much more for power than polish.
    - planckscnst 16y ago
      I use Multiple Tab Handler. Closing a group of tabs in FF is a simple as selecting them (click, shift+click) and closing them. This is an example of why I love Firefox - it is way more permissive with what extensions can do.
- Tomek_ 16y ago
  Maybe it's only me but TabCandy/Panorama feels slow and clumsy, and there's too much mouse clicking/moving involved in operating it (or so it seems after 5 minute of trying it, maybe a matter of getting used to/discovering keyboard shortcuts). I like Opera's solution more (is less revolutionary, and thus easier to adapt to probably). But other than that first impressions are good: feels faster and more responsive (at last!). Maybe I will give it some more tries to see if it will survive a stress test of a normal day-to-day use with tons of tabs opened, etc.
- jfager 16y ago
  Pentadactyl is not the new name for Vimperator, it's the name of a fork of Vimperator. Both projects still exist and are both still being actively developed. In my experience, at least as of last Friday, you have to use a nightly to get a working version of Pentadactyl, while the version of Vimperator up on the Mozilla add-ons site is fine. I'm personally using Vimperator, just b/c I haven't yet had an itch that it doesn't scratch, and I'm not really clear on what Pentadactyl actually does better (because I'm too lazy to figure it out myself and haven't been able to find a current bullet-pointed list that tells me).
eapen 16y ago
Worth a try? Yes. Better Tab handling and has the ability to hold tabs in "groups" and a "panorama" view which allows you to view all tabs across groups. The awesome bar has also improved significantly and has some smart features (like the option of tab switching instead of opening a new tab when you already have a URL open). Better Add-ons management interface and some add-ons work without a restart of the browser. Websockets disabled (for security) I still prefer Chrome though. PS. I've been using the FF 4 beta version for a 3-4 months now and probably dont remember the other significant changes.
- icegreentea 16y ago
  I've been using FF4 beta since B3... does anyone actually use the panorama/tab grouping thing? I find its performance really poor and kinda frustrating, especially since I've been using add-ons that provide similar functionality for a while.
  - sid0 16y ago
    It is invaluable when I'm doing research or development and I want to "swap out" something that I'm working on to focus on something else. Since that takes up the vast majority of my time -- yeah, I use it a lot.
  - mziulu 16y ago
    I do - kind of. Since I don't have Firefox set to reopen the last batch of tabs I had opened the last time I was using it, Panorama is kind of useless in my case, since I would mainly use it to keep tabs grouped by content, and it would be a chore to redo the grouping at each restart. Still, it comes in handy to keep reddit/hn on one group and work related stuff on another groups and quickly switch between the two by doing Ctrl - Shift - ~. A big optimization was to set browser.panorama.animate_zoom to false in about:config. That animation was killing the flow in my case.
    - sid0 16y ago
      Session restore saves your tab groups.
RossM 16y ago
Different (Chrome-inspired) UI; faster (rendering speed) compared to previous versions and some techy-things like hardware acceleration. They also have synchronisation built-in now. I'm also a Chrome user but I'd quite like to switch back if they've sorted out the chronic lag issues I've always had. Update: In ff4 now, looks and feels great, if a little sluggish with page scrolling. I don't know, Chrome just feels slicker. Update 2: Just froze up loading a flash game, shame.
- weaksauce 16y ago
  I have been using chrome on a Mac and it felt so sluggish that I looked at ff4 betas to improve it. The ff betas feel much more responsive and the rc was even more so. It might have something to do with my mbp having trouble with the high res external monitor but anecdotally that's what I have seen.
  - tvon 16y ago
    It's not my main browser but I don't seem to have issues with Chrome on OSX, I'd suggest maybe purging your install (or at least it seems you're experiencing something unusual).
    - weaksauce 16y ago
      It was working ok until I got a 30" monitor. Then it became a choppy scroll and sluggish. Sluggish I can handle more than the scrolling.
      - ephemient 16y ago
        Are you on OS X Leopard? My understanding is that the out-of-process rendering used by Chrome forces blitting the whole page from the child process to the parent chrome on systems predating Snow Leopard.
        weaksauce 16y ago
sktrdie 16y ago
The startup time of Chrome is hard to beat - I'll stick with Chrome for now.
- joebananas 16y ago
  Just how often do you start your browser?
  - michaelcampbell 16y ago
    chuckle This is the exact same thread I used to see years ago, except it was the startup time of vi vs. emacs. Being an emacs guy, I would generally remark something like, "yeah, I remember the ONE time a few months ago I started emacs when the sparc had to be rebooted for new memory."
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- u48998 16y ago
  There is no startup time in Chrome, it is always running even if you close it.
- melling 16y ago
  According to LifeHacker, Firefox 4 is on par with Chrome. http://lifehacker.com/#!5784396/browser-speed-tests-firefox-4-internet-explorer-9-chrome-11-and-more http://lifehacker.com/#!5784396/browser-speed-tests-firefox-... If startup speed is your main criteria, you want Opera.
mbrubeck 16y ago
* Faster startup, more responsive, faster JavaScript with the new Jaegermonkey JIT. * New, less cluttered UI. * Built-in sync of bookmarks/tabs/history/passwords, fully encrypted on the client (unlike Chrome's sync which encrypts passwords only). * Sync your bookmarks, tabs, history, passwords, and form data to Firefox for Android! See also this thread for answers from various members of the Firefox team: http://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/g197r/iama_were_on_the_firefox_development_team_and/c1k6dex http://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/g197r/iama_were_on_the...
- Tyrannosaurs 16y ago
  Maybe it's just me but every FF UI I've seen looks slightly clunky and this one while better is still the ugliest of the next generation browsers (though Safari gives it a run for it's money). And the menu the Firefox button in the top left brings up is simply horrible. It's like someone said "I like the fact that the Windows Start button looks and acts differently to every other menu or dialog anywhere, but wouldn't it be good if it looked a bit more like a menu to make it more confusing and was generally a bit uglier and more amateurish".
- bretthoerner 16y ago
  But aren't those all features of Chrome? Wouldn't a happy Chrome user want to know about something FF4 does that Chrome doesn't? It's very clear that 4 > 3.6, the features you listed are awesome ... they just aren't very appealing to a current Chrome user.
  - grayrest 16y ago
    The primary reason to use FF is that you like a particular addon, you like FF's expose over Chrome's, or you like how FF does the location bar (which is why I use FF). There's not a ton of differentiation between the two any more.
  - mbrubeck 16y ago
    I was answering the question from above "what are the differences from the current version?" As for the differences from Chrome, those are mostly the same as they've always been: Deeper extensibility, more customization points, and made by a non-profit organization dedicated to openness.
hasenj 16y ago
* Real ad blocking (more generally: real extensions). Other points (not so major for most): * Audio api (allows you to synthesize audio) * Better language support (Chrome on Linux has tons of issues with non-latin languages)
- drzaiusapelord 16y ago
  I find that Chrome's extensions are quite real, feature rich, and stable. The last time I used FF, massive memory leaks were blamed on "your extensions." Not to mention I'm not even sure which IETab extension is real anymore. One is dead, the new one is nagware, etc. Oh, and I like that flash is sandboxed and autoupdated. I like a built-in PDF reader. I can't imagine going back to the stone age of browsers with FF or IE and downloading all the various readers and plugins for a basic web experience (Adobe reader, flash, etc). I'm sure FF4 is good by Firefox standards, but Google is doing something very new with Chrome. The out of the box experience is stellar and end users are secure because they really have no idea how to update flash or adobe reader on their own.
  - hasenj 16y ago
    Well, AdBlocking in chrome is really weak. Also, I actually don't like the built-in PDF reader in Chrome. Scrolling was weird in it last time I checked.
    - metageek 16y ago
      Yeah, personally, I'd rather stick with evince, and have the same PDF viewer whether I open a document from the browser or from the command line.
  - jokermatt999 16y ago
    I find that Chrome's extensions are quite real, feature rich, and stable. For a lot of basic stuff, yes. GMail checker, Adblocking (afaik), simple stuff that just requires the equivalent of a Greasemonkey userscript or a button. However, for deeper stuff that really changes the UI of the browser, Chrome is no where near Firefox. Take a look at TreeStyleTab, DownThemAll, Pentadactyl, and similar feature rich extensions. Those simply cannot be done in Chrome as is. There are some weak alternatives, but they don't do half of what Firefox's do. Vimium has issues with focus and nothing like Pentadactyl's customization; Vertical tabs doesn't allow proper grouping, UI, or options; I don't think DownThemAll's separate window is even possible on Chrome but I could be wrong. This isn't to score points for Firefox; it's a serious weakness in Chrome that's the main thing that's kept me from switching. I don't know if Google intends to allow this kind of extensibility, but damn I hope they do.
ootachi 16y ago
IMHO the biggest thing that Firefox 4 has over Chrome is graphics acceleration via Direct2D on Windows and GL retained layers on the Mac. Chrome has neither in stable builds. Graphics acceleration helps scrolling performance in particular and is what allows things like the Panorama zoom animation to look smooth.
- m3koval 16y ago
  I am not sure if it is in the stable builds, but Chrome dev builds have had an option to enable GPU accelerated compositing in chrome://flags for some time. Unfortunately, I haven't noticed any performance with it on or off. You can read more about it here: https://sites.google.com/a/chromium.org/dev/developers/design-documents/gpu-accelerated-compositing-in-chrome https://sites.google.com/a/chromium.org/dev/developers/desig...
bgray 16y ago
Right. Is it just me or does it seem that most (if not all) of the new features in this release were inspired by Chrome? What is Firefox doing to move the web browsing experience forward?
- mbrubeck 16y ago
  Some of the best features in Firefox 4 are new web technologies like HTTP Strict Transport Security, WebGL, hardware acceleration, CSS3 calc() and any(), the HTML5 parser, and IndexedDB. Many of these are not yet in Chrome. See http://www.mozilla.com/firefox/technology/ http://www.mozilla.com/firefox/technology/ for a longer list.
  - bgray 16y ago
    Upvoted. Thanks for the link!
csel 16y ago
For me, search on the address bar is the most important feature that I love about Chrome. IE9 has the same thing now. I am not sure why Firefox 4 did not put search on the address bar. So for a Chrome user, you will greatly miss that feature. :( Until FF integrates that, I am back to using Chrome.
- mbrubeck 16y ago
  You can search from the address bar in Firefox 4, but you won't get search suggestions as you type. If you want to change this, try: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-us/firefox/addon/omnibar/ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-us/firefox/addon/omnibar/ (And you can use the "Customize toolbars" window to remove the search bar if you want.) Firefox intentionally does not show suggestions in the address bar by default, because we don't want to send everything you type there to a third party.
  - csel 16y ago
    thanks man - I just don't understand why FF didn't just integrate that as a default feature.

Lets say I'm a chrome user (and loving it), is Firefox4 worth a try? What are the main differences from the last version?

by d0m 16y ago

Lets say I'm a chrome user (and loving it), is Firefox4 worth a try? What are the main differences from the last version?

Dobbs 16y ago

The Tab Candy (http://www.azarask.in/blog/post/tabcandy/ http://www.azarask.in/blog/post/tabcandy/) feature is pretty cool. The big thing about Firefox is the Addons: FireBug, NoScript, Adblock Plus, and Pentadactyl (was known as Vimperator) all add up to a fantastic experience. With Firefox 4 I get the fantastic experience with something much closer to Chrome's speed and tab usability. I don't know if I would say Firefox 4 is quite there yet but it is much much closer.

eftpotrm 16y ago
I'm curious; in what way do you prefer Chrome's tab handling? For me it's one of the worst things about Chrome; this window currently has ten tabs open and that's at the _very_ low end for me. With Firefox I can see what I've got open no matter how many I've got because of the pop-down list and the scrolling bar, while Chrome just mashes the list into invisibility.
- darklajid 16y ago
  Also - Tree Style Tab [1] is a must have for me (on 3.x for now, just checking if I'll upgrade now or wait for some of my plugins to migrate first) 1: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/tree-style-tab/ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/tree-style-ta...
  - eapen 16y ago
    I just plugged this in another reply. The latest and greatest can be found at the author's site. btw... TabCandy is now called Panorama.
  - dairem 16y ago
    Yes, I'm using Tree Style Tabs on FF4 now, it's fantastic once you go over 20 or so tabs.
    - mistermann 16y ago
      Do you have no issues with it on 4? Mine is very buggy, won't open child (or any other) tabs properly, they open non-visible.
  - holygoat 16y ago
    Give Vertical Tabs a shot. It's faster, albeit no tree handling. https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/vertical-tabs/ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/vertical-tabs...
- rufugee 16y ago
  Here here. Chrome's tab handling is a nightmare. I hope FF4 will give me a reason to switch back and get access to what should be simple things (vertical tab lists) but appear to be difficult to provide in Chrome.
  - philikon 16y ago
    For a fast and simple vertical tabs implementation, see https://addons.mozilla.org/firefox/addon/vertical-tabs/ https://addons.mozilla.org/firefox/addon/vertical-tabs/
- Dobbs 16y ago
  The big thing is just the smoothness of handling tabs. Closing a group of tabs in Chrome is a pleasure because of how it moves the tabs when you close one. Also grabbing a tab and moving it into a new window is a very clean/smooth operation. Firefox has improved a lot. 4 is a fantastic piece of software but it isn't quite as polished as Chrome is. Despite these issues I greatly prefer Firefox over Chrome. Chrome might be more polished but Firefox is (imho) a much more powerful piece of software and at the end of the day I care much more for power than polish.
  - planckscnst 16y ago
    I use Multiple Tab Handler. Closing a group of tabs in FF is a simple as selecting them (click, shift+click) and closing them. This is an example of why I love Firefox - it is way more permissive with what extensions can do.
Tomek_ 16y ago
Maybe it's only me but TabCandy/Panorama feels slow and clumsy, and there's too much mouse clicking/moving involved in operating it (or so it seems after 5 minute of trying it, maybe a matter of getting used to/discovering keyboard shortcuts). I like Opera's solution more (is less revolutionary, and thus easier to adapt to probably). But other than that first impressions are good: feels faster and more responsive (at last!). Maybe I will give it some more tries to see if it will survive a stress test of a normal day-to-day use with tons of tabs opened, etc.
jfager 16y ago
Pentadactyl is not the new name for Vimperator, it's the name of a fork of Vimperator. Both projects still exist and are both still being actively developed. In my experience, at least as of last Friday, you have to use a nightly to get a working version of Pentadactyl, while the version of Vimperator up on the Mozilla add-ons site is fine. I'm personally using Vimperator, just b/c I haven't yet had an itch that it doesn't scratch, and I'm not really clear on what Pentadactyl actually does better (because I'm too lazy to figure it out myself and haven't been able to find a current bullet-pointed list that tells me).

eapen 16y ago

Worth a try? Yes. Better Tab handling and has the ability to hold tabs in "groups" and a "panorama" view which allows you to view all tabs across groups. The awesome bar has also improved significantly and has some smart features (like the option of tab switching instead of opening a new tab when you already have a URL open). Better Add-ons management interface and some add-ons work without a restart of the browser. Websockets disabled (for security) I still prefer Chrome though. PS. I've been using the FF 4 beta version for a 3-4 months now and probably dont remember the other significant changes.

icegreentea 16y ago
I've been using FF4 beta since B3... does anyone actually use the panorama/tab grouping thing? I find its performance really poor and kinda frustrating, especially since I've been using add-ons that provide similar functionality for a while.
- sid0 16y ago
  It is invaluable when I'm doing research or development and I want to "swap out" something that I'm working on to focus on something else. Since that takes up the vast majority of my time -- yeah, I use it a lot.
- mziulu 16y ago
  I do - kind of. Since I don't have Firefox set to reopen the last batch of tabs I had opened the last time I was using it, Panorama is kind of useless in my case, since I would mainly use it to keep tabs grouped by content, and it would be a chore to redo the grouping at each restart. Still, it comes in handy to keep reddit/hn on one group and work related stuff on another groups and quickly switch between the two by doing Ctrl - Shift - ~. A big optimization was to set browser.panorama.animate_zoom to false in about:config. That animation was killing the flow in my case.
  - sid0 16y ago
    Session restore saves your tab groups.

RossM 16y ago

Different (Chrome-inspired) UI; faster (rendering speed) compared to previous versions and some techy-things like hardware acceleration. They also have synchronisation built-in now. I'm also a Chrome user but I'd quite like to switch back if they've sorted out the chronic lag issues I've always had. Update: In ff4 now, looks and feels great, if a little sluggish with page scrolling. I don't know, Chrome just feels slicker. Update 2: Just froze up loading a flash game, shame.

weaksauce 16y ago
I have been using chrome on a Mac and it felt so sluggish that I looked at ff4 betas to improve it. The ff betas feel much more responsive and the rc was even more so. It might have something to do with my mbp having trouble with the high res external monitor but anecdotally that's what I have seen.
- tvon 16y ago
  It's not my main browser but I don't seem to have issues with Chrome on OSX, I'd suggest maybe purging your install (or at least it seems you're experiencing something unusual).
  - weaksauce 16y ago
    It was working ok until I got a 30" monitor. Then it became a choppy scroll and sluggish. Sluggish I can handle more than the scrolling.
    - ephemient 16y ago
      Are you on OS X Leopard? My understanding is that the out-of-process rendering used by Chrome forces blitting the whole page from the child process to the parent chrome on systems predating Snow Leopard.
      - weaksauce 16y ago

sktrdie 16y ago

The startup time of Chrome is hard to beat - I'll stick with Chrome for now.

joebananas 16y ago
Just how often do you start your browser?
- michaelcampbell 16y ago
  chuckle This is the exact same thread I used to see years ago, except it was the startup time of vi vs. emacs. Being an emacs guy, I would generally remark something like, "yeah, I remember the ONE time a few months ago I started emacs when the sparc had to be rebooted for new memory."
- deleted 16y ago
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u48998 16y ago
There is no startup time in Chrome, it is always running even if you close it.
melling 16y ago
According to LifeHacker, Firefox 4 is on par with Chrome. http://lifehacker.com/#!5784396/browser-speed-tests-firefox-4-internet-explorer-9-chrome-11-and-more http://lifehacker.com/#!5784396/browser-speed-tests-firefox-... If startup speed is your main criteria, you want Opera.

mbrubeck 16y ago

* Faster startup, more responsive, faster JavaScript with the new Jaegermonkey JIT. * New, less cluttered UI. * Built-in sync of bookmarks/tabs/history/passwords, fully encrypted on the client (unlike Chrome's sync which encrypts passwords only). * Sync your bookmarks, tabs, history, passwords, and form data to Firefox for Android! See also this thread for answers from various members of the Firefox team: http://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/g197r/iama_were_on_the_firefox_development_team_and/c1k6dex http://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/g197r/iama_were_on_the...

Tyrannosaurs 16y ago
Maybe it's just me but every FF UI I've seen looks slightly clunky and this one while better is still the ugliest of the next generation browsers (though Safari gives it a run for it's money). And the menu the Firefox button in the top left brings up is simply horrible. It's like someone said "I like the fact that the Windows Start button looks and acts differently to every other menu or dialog anywhere, but wouldn't it be good if it looked a bit more like a menu to make it more confusing and was generally a bit uglier and more amateurish".
bretthoerner 16y ago
But aren't those all features of Chrome? Wouldn't a happy Chrome user want to know about something FF4 does that Chrome doesn't? It's very clear that 4 > 3.6, the features you listed are awesome ... they just aren't very appealing to a current Chrome user.
- grayrest 16y ago
  The primary reason to use FF is that you like a particular addon, you like FF's expose over Chrome's, or you like how FF does the location bar (which is why I use FF). There's not a ton of differentiation between the two any more.
- mbrubeck 16y ago
  I was answering the question from above "what are the differences from the current version?" As for the differences from Chrome, those are mostly the same as they've always been: Deeper extensibility, more customization points, and made by a non-profit organization dedicated to openness.

hasenj 16y ago

* Real ad blocking (more generally: real extensions). Other points (not so major for most): * Audio api (allows you to synthesize audio) * Better language support (Chrome on Linux has tons of issues with non-latin languages)

drzaiusapelord 16y ago
I find that Chrome's extensions are quite real, feature rich, and stable. The last time I used FF, massive memory leaks were blamed on "your extensions." Not to mention I'm not even sure which IETab extension is real anymore. One is dead, the new one is nagware, etc. Oh, and I like that flash is sandboxed and autoupdated. I like a built-in PDF reader. I can't imagine going back to the stone age of browsers with FF or IE and downloading all the various readers and plugins for a basic web experience (Adobe reader, flash, etc). I'm sure FF4 is good by Firefox standards, but Google is doing something very new with Chrome. The out of the box experience is stellar and end users are secure because they really have no idea how to update flash or adobe reader on their own.
- hasenj 16y ago
  Well, AdBlocking in chrome is really weak. Also, I actually don't like the built-in PDF reader in Chrome. Scrolling was weird in it last time I checked.
  - metageek 16y ago
    Yeah, personally, I'd rather stick with evince, and have the same PDF viewer whether I open a document from the browser or from the command line.
- jokermatt999 16y ago
  I find that Chrome's extensions are quite real, feature rich, and stable. For a lot of basic stuff, yes. GMail checker, Adblocking (afaik), simple stuff that just requires the equivalent of a Greasemonkey userscript or a button. However, for deeper stuff that really changes the UI of the browser, Chrome is no where near Firefox. Take a look at TreeStyleTab, DownThemAll, Pentadactyl, and similar feature rich extensions. Those simply cannot be done in Chrome as is. There are some weak alternatives, but they don't do half of what Firefox's do. Vimium has issues with focus and nothing like Pentadactyl's customization; Vertical tabs doesn't allow proper grouping, UI, or options; I don't think DownThemAll's separate window is even possible on Chrome but I could be wrong. This isn't to score points for Firefox; it's a serious weakness in Chrome that's the main thing that's kept me from switching. I don't know if Google intends to allow this kind of extensibility, but damn I hope they do.

ootachi 16y ago

IMHO the biggest thing that Firefox 4 has over Chrome is graphics acceleration via Direct2D on Windows and GL retained layers on the Mac. Chrome has neither in stable builds. Graphics acceleration helps scrolling performance in particular and is what allows things like the Panorama zoom animation to look smooth.

m3koval 16y ago
I am not sure if it is in the stable builds, but Chrome dev builds have had an option to enable GPU accelerated compositing in chrome://flags for some time. Unfortunately, I haven't noticed any performance with it on or off. You can read more about it here: https://sites.google.com/a/chromium.org/dev/developers/design-documents/gpu-accelerated-compositing-in-chrome https://sites.google.com/a/chromium.org/dev/developers/desig...

bgray 16y ago

Right. Is it just me or does it seem that most (if not all) of the new features in this release were inspired by Chrome? What is Firefox doing to move the web browsing experience forward?

mbrubeck 16y ago
Some of the best features in Firefox 4 are new web technologies like HTTP Strict Transport Security, WebGL, hardware acceleration, CSS3 calc() and any(), the HTML5 parser, and IndexedDB. Many of these are not yet in Chrome. See http://www.mozilla.com/firefox/technology/ http://www.mozilla.com/firefox/technology/ for a longer list.
- bgray 16y ago
  Upvoted. Thanks for the link!

csel 16y ago

For me, search on the address bar is the most important feature that I love about Chrome. IE9 has the same thing now. I am not sure why Firefox 4 did not put search on the address bar. So for a Chrome user, you will greatly miss that feature. :( Until FF integrates that, I am back to using Chrome.

mbrubeck 16y ago
You can search from the address bar in Firefox 4, but you won't get search suggestions as you type. If you want to change this, try: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-us/firefox/addon/omnibar/ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-us/firefox/addon/omnibar/ (And you can use the "Customize toolbars" window to remove the search bar if you want.) Firefox intentionally does not show suggestions in the address bar by default, because we don't want to send everything you type there to a third party.
- csel 16y ago
  thanks man - I just don't understand why FF didn't just integrate that as a default feature.