Firefox 4 Beta Released!

[madnessken]

Firefox 4 Beta 1 is released.

Conceivably Tech has noticed that Mozilla has quietly uploaded a Firefox 4 Beta 1 candidate build to its FTP server. No release notes or announcements have been made as of this post, but surely Mozilla will make the public aware of the final beta release when it's ready.

As discussed yesterday, Firefox 4 Beta 1 brings a whole new user interface to the browsers aging layout. Gone is the boring old grey (except in Windows XP, as seen above). Replacing it is an all new, modern, less intrusive, and glassier (Windows version) look. In the JavaScript department, the SunSpider benchmark shows solid improvement over Firefox 3.6.6. Oddly though, Firefox 4 still seems to lag far behind Chrome, IE9, Opera, and Safari.

Keep in mind, this version is an early beta and should not be used as your primary browser. It's more stable than the alpha versions, but there's still plenty of work to be done before it's ready for mass consumption. Many add-ons that you probably use aren't yet compatible. According to a Mozilla developer, the team still plans to tweak their new JaegerMonkey JavaScript engine before release. Their goal is to hit at least 500 ms.

Go here for download :

http://ftp.mozilla.org/pub/mozilla.org/firefox/nightly/4.0b1-candidates/build1/win32/en-US/

 

[Mr Happy]

Checking it out now. It's really strange that they don't have their directory protected. Very careless of them for such a big organisation.

http://ftp.mozilla.org/pub/mozilla.org/firefox/nightly/4.0b1-candidates/build1/

even the source code
http://ftp.mozilla.org/pub/mozilla.org/firefox/nightly/4.0b1-candidates/build1/source/

 

[SJshah]

Very careless of them for such a big organisation.

Its not carelessness, they want people who are interested in the development of firefox to download it, test it, report bugs, make suggestions on the code, etc.

 

[Mr Happy]

fair enough SJsha. Good point. It could do with development. It still doesn't support CSS 3 or HTML 5 properly. Pretty disappointing. I'll just delete it again. Chrome is still way ahead. eg check this link in Chrome and this beta FF http://www.sencha.com/deploy/touch/examples/kitchensink/

 

[Daniel]

Checking it out right now >_>

 

[SLiMRiDER]

Downloading, thanks.

 

[DLow]

The nightly builds have been out for weeks i posted on this weeks ago Glad to see a beta was released although

 

[Hyperz]

fair enough SJsha. Good point. It could do with development. It still doesn't support CSS 3 or HTML 5 properly. Pretty disappointing. I'll just delete it again. Chrome is still way ahead. eg check this link in Chrome and this beta FF http://www.sencha.com/deploy/touch/examples/kitchensink/

The HTML5 hype is getting a bit old tbh. You guys do realize that at this point there is no complete HTML5 specification? HTML5 is not done yet and the stuff which is already done is still subject to change. It would be a waste of time to add all current HTML5 stuff. Google can piss away time/money/resources, Mozilla can't. And because FF is completely open source it is normal to find nightly builds on their FTP etc. That's what open source is about.

In all fairness, FF is still the best browser out there. Who has the most complete HTML5 implementation is irrelevant.

 

[DLow]

@ Hyperz

I agree 100 % google chrome is backed by what i 1.999.999.999.999 $ company meh

And what is FF backed behind ? :s nonthing & they are still number one !

 

[XxX]

@ Hyperz

I agree 100 % google chrome is backed by what i 1.999.999.999.999 $ company meh

And what is FF backed behind ? :s nonthing & they are still number one !

coz it is made by a community with the whole support of ppls...
:P

FF is best and fast browser seen so far.. =)

 

[JohnnyBoy]

Although some various addons may cause slower browsing, FF is still the most powerful and best internet browser in the world :D

 

[Mr Happy]

fair enough SJsha. Good point. It could do with development. It still doesn't support CSS 3 or HTML 5 properly. Pretty disappointing. I'll just delete it again. Chrome is still way ahead. eg check this link in Chrome and this beta FF http://www.sencha.com/deploy/touch/examples/kitchensink/

The HTML5 hype is getting a bit old tbh. You guys do realize that at this point there is no complete HTML5 specification? HTML5 is not done yet and the stuff which is already done is still subject to change. It would be a waste of time to add all current HTML5 stuff. Google can piss away time/money/resources, Mozilla can't. And because FF is completely open source it is normal to find nightly builds on their FTP etc. That's what open source is about.

In all fairness, FF is still the best browser out there. Who has the most complete HTML5 implementation is irrelevant.

I accepted the open source point made earlier by SJsaha and that's true about the HTML 5 not being finished but it's pretty much at the stage where the amount of change is becoming minimal. As far as it's CSS 3 support goes Chrome is still far ahead of it.
People will always have their preferences. Mine is light weight and speed and thats why I prefer Chrome. Most still prefer FF while their's the few that still cling onto IE. It's basically a question of taste and personal preferences.

 

[Myth?]

Hmm nice I'll check this out.