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Firefox 3 Beta 4 is Out and Available for Download!

en-us.www.mozilla.com — "[Improved in Beta 4!] Firefox 3 Beta 4 includes more than 900 enhancements from the previous beta, including drastic improvements to performance and memory usage, as well as fixes for stability, platform enhancements and user interface improvements. Many of these improvements were based on community feedback from the previous beta."

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  • beltzner, on 03/11/2008, -3/+123We hope you like it. There's a pretty thorough review at http://mozillalinks.org/wp/2008/03/firefox-3-beta- ...
    • MusicalGenius, on 03/11/2008, -1/+17I'm excited. I was a little disappointed with the 3rd beta. I had problems with it. I'm also seeing a lot of crap with Firefox 2 now. ASIDE from my ram usage... I'm more concerned with the browsers stability and freezes.

      I have a lot of hope for FF3
      • CoolWind, on 03/11/2008, -7/+14It must be you. Firefox 2 is stable for me, and I'm using it all day every day.
        • fkr3, on 03/11/2008, -4/+5That's the attitude that kept memory leaks from being a problem for so long. The threshold for how many people are "isolated incidents" before there's a problem is ridiculously high with Firefox.
          • MWeather, on 03/11/2008, -2/+9One man's memory leak is another man's tab history.
          • thumperings, on 03/11/2008, -1/+2well all I can say is.. Wake me when all the plugins and addons work, otherwise there is no need to even consider the switch for me yet.
          • Tenoq, on 03/12/2008, -0/+1@ thumperings - you can write your own plugins and add-ons, you know. And new versions of FF aren't going to fix bad coding from add-on writers...
            It's just like those people having a whinge at Windows because their software broke it. It's not really Microsoft's fault they installed a badly-written program (usually).
            More to the point though - what add-on or plugin DOES NOT work? Every one I've tried has worked fine, and I've probably got half a dozen running now on the new FF beta.
      • halobender, on 03/11/2008, -0/+9FF2 freezes for me on certain websites on my Linux box.
        • trogdoor, on 03/11/2008, -0/+5Do you have adobe's flash plugin installed? If so, do you use flashblock? I noticed that a LOT of my problems with Firefox crashing were the result of the flash plugin crashing, it isn't great that a single plugin can crash the browser, but flash is probably the cause of most firefox crashes in Linux.
          • diggrim, on 03/11/2008, -0/+3and Windows Media Player is the cause of most Windows FireFox crashes (I use both Win/Lin)
        • OwdenBowden, on 03/11/2008, -0/+3What about in windows. I have to tell you - every time I just go to Digg.com and open a few tabs I am just about frozen. I have even tried Adblock but it is the FOX and I don't know what to do.
          • Ataxia2008, on 03/11/2008, -0/+2It's the javascript...
          • Tenoq, on 03/12/2008, -0/+1FF3 doesn't seem the have the Javascript issues on Digg that FF2 did. Also, if it does play up, FF3 tells you and gives you a chance to stop the crappy script rather than waiting half an hour for it to crash/complete/format your computer.
    • troye, on 03/11/2008, -1/+45Beta 3 was very much noticeably faster than FF2. You can have your Firefox 2 installed and the beta installed at the same time, and all your bookmarks and settings get transferred over also.

      Try out the Beta; you will be amazed.
    • skyh, on 03/11/2008, -0/+21They weren't kidding when they said stuff like GMail was faster.... holy crap.
      • theaceoffire, on 03/11/2008, -0/+7Not to mention Digg...
        • IEatHamburgers, on 03/11/2008, -0/+11Still never stops loading though. At least it doesn't crash the browser like it does on my iPod...
    • mooseontheloose, on 03/11/2008, -0/+5I really hope the search in the address bar is improved. It was great before Beta 3, then it suddenly started to give seemingly random items as my top search site that I hadn't visited in a couple days. Let's see if this frecency is any good.

      And yay, the back button is fixed in OSX!
      • damndj, on 03/11/2008, -0/+1Yah, the address bar history is freaking annoying. I don't know if there's something I am missing, but like you said, it seems it will pick links at random. Very annoying.

        Well, it's not random, it looking at tag words from both the address and the site's description. I like the old way better.
    • Callaway7, on 03/11/2008, -0/+10any suggestions on how to set the new address bar to not search through my bookmarks? i can see how this could be a really helpful feature, but i really don't want my bookmarked porn sites being displayed. i
    • rpgmaker, on 03/11/2008, -1/+1I just hope the stable release to be ready before the next version of Ubuntu is out or froze. I'm not a big fan of including BETA software in a supposedly stable release that will be supported for 3 years...
    • passive, on 03/11/2008, -0/+1You know what's hilarious?
      That review crashes Beta 3 for me. I hope that's fixed in the Beta 4. :)
    • Audacitor, on 03/11/2008, -0/+1This new version scrolls like butter.
  • jecruzs, on 03/11/2008, -4/+13"We've done four already, but now we're steady..."
    Let's hope this is the final beta iteration!
    • Planets, on 03/11/2008, -1/+14I wish.

      http://www.computerworld.com/action/article.do?com ...
    • MikeCerm, on 03/11/2008, -2/+19It's definitely not. I'm currently using the pre-Beta 5 nightly.

      http://ftp.mozilla.org/pub/mozilla.org/firefox/nig ...
    • andrewcubbie, on 03/11/2008, -7/+3...And then they went One, Two, Three, Beta 4.

      /lame joke
    • stewartgorman, on 03/11/2008, -3/+1dug for the Zep reference. love the ocean
    • balaknair, on 03/11/2008, -1/+1It seems Mozilla usually goes for 5 beta versions prior to final release. But beta 4 is pretty close to the final release, just a few minor details remain to be incorporated into FF3 to make the final cut, mostly I think with the new UI and theme, icons etc. and a small number of minor bugs. I've been using it for a few hours now, and it feels very fast and stable- it's a pretty big improvement over beta3, and a huge improvement over FF2. I haven't encountered any memory leaks or instability yet, though many of the extensions I usually use being disabled in beta4 may have a hand in that.
  • benjipenguin, on 03/11/2008, -1/+11Looks like some great new enhancements... Just making the good only better, and giving more reasons not to look back to the last-gen browsers...
    • rokinroj, on 03/11/2008, -0/+3Are any of the (what I consider) "must have" extensions supported yet? eg. AdBlock & Filterset.G?
      • Split98, on 03/11/2008, -0/+1AdBlock is working great on mine. Dunno about Filterset.G... don't use it.
      • andycr512, on 03/11/2008, -0/+3I've been using AdBlock on nightly builds for months.
      • drakenlot, on 03/11/2008, -0/+4Adblock seems to work fine, but my 'must have' extension Firebug doesn't...

        I'm a sad web developer every time I use the betas...
        • onedigg, on 03/11/2008, -0/+10Luckily for us, there's a beta version of firebug that works great with FF3
          http://getfirebug.com/releases/
          and navigate to beta 1.1 - don't worry, it's just as stable as FF3 itself
          • RobotBuddha, on 03/12/2008, -0/+1Thank you! Having to choose between FF2 and firebug, or FF3 and no firebug was painful.
        • mattmcm, on 03/11/2008, -0/+2Onedigg, if I could digg you up more than once I would. Thanks for that link.
      • rauz, on 03/11/2008, -1/+1Adblock Plus has Filterset.G built in and works just fine.
        • Blarbo, on 03/11/2008, -1/+3no, it's called easylist, and it's actually a lot better then filterset-g
          • rauz, on 03/11/2008, -1/+1Well actually Filterset.G allows you to choose which list to subscribe to, just like you don't have to use Easylist with Adblock Plus. So, no.
      • Tenoq, on 03/12/2008, -0/+1Most of the FF2 plugins work if you tell FF to not check for compatibility. Adblock's latest release always worked anyway.
    • Blarbo, on 03/11/2008, -0/+5filterset-g was surpassed by adblock plus and easylist... get with the times, gosh.
    • Konstantino, on 03/12/2008, -0/+2Still doesn't feel right on the Mac though. The new UI skin really helps, but it just doesn't feel native. Transitions are jumpy, and a small pet peeve of mine in Leopard is right clicking - in Firefox all the borders are square, unlike the rest of the Leopard UI.
  • TwisterMc, on 03/11/2008, -55/+1Man, I was hoping to be the first to Digg this. ;) So close.
    • hungryduck, on 03/11/2008, -1/+19Do you have any idea how useless your comment was?
  • Apoy, on 03/11/2008, -19/+5Very nice. I'm installing it right now.
    • subliminalurge, on 03/11/2008, -2/+1If you're still installing how do you know it's very nice? Once you run it, it could turn out to be a steaming pile of *****....
      • CoolWind, on 03/11/2008, -2/+1You're right, when I try to right-click on a link it crashes.
  • koestner, on 03/11/2008, -16/+7Thanks for info. I love FF!
  • thepotter, on 03/11/2008, -3/+16Yes!! I'm glad to see this is coming along... There will be a beta 5 before the final release, where a few of the bugs I've noticed are blocking release. I was hoping that the Linux version would get the UI update, but no :-(
    • Fergy, on 03/11/2008, -0/+19Firefox 3 got the Linux UI update it's just that it tries to look like a Linux browser. In the past Firefox would look the same on Windows and Linux.
      • Shananra, on 03/11/2008, -9/+2Yeah, but the Windows version of FF3 is as ugly as Windows itself! I'll take the linux skin, thanks.
        • pltnz64, on 03/11/2008, -0/+9there is no linux skin. it uses whatever gtk theme you are using
        • drakenlot, on 03/11/2008, -0/+2The Windows default looks too cartoony for my taste.
    • nutmac, on 03/11/2008, -1/+0I get "looking more like a native Linux app" part and I am pleased with that efforts. But the beta 4 looks like crap on Fedora 8, with non-native looking widgets (blockish corners, tabs, and buttons) and dialog boxes not respecting the OS's DPI setting.
  • estvir, on 03/11/2008, -7/+17Extremely welcome aside from them forcing the horrible new theme even when using small icons. Does anyone know a way to get the old ones back? The new ones are as I said, horrible but the small versions aren't nearly as bad as the large ones.
    • wmarcello, on 03/11/2008, -1/+57No kidding. The new theme on XP looks horrendous. Are there no graphic artists on the team?
    • MikeCerm, on 03/11/2008, -0/+4You can probably just grab the theme out of an old version, like Beta 2. If you can't figure out how to do that, then you can wait for someone to repackage the Fx2 theme to work on Fx3. That probably won't happen until after Fx3 is finalized.
    • freedomknight, on 03/11/2008, -1/+5Its much better than IE8 with default Live toolbar crap.
      • estvir, on 03/11/2008, -3/+2I'd take IE8 over this any second of the day and the Live toolbar is only there if you choose it to be.
    • goosnargh, on 03/11/2008, -0/+4new live bookmark icon = terrible
    • Wkall, on 03/11/2008, -1/+1https://addons.mozilla.org/ro/firefox/addon/3699 you can try this. sorry for advertising
    • fishbert, on 03/12/2008, -0/+1Yeah, I can't stand the distractingly-large 'back' button. The mac version of beta3 had 'back' and 'forward' buttons of equal size, and I *much* prefer that cleanliness and simplicity to what they have now... looks like a backwards 'play' button off Windows Media Player.
  • Darkhacker, on 03/11/2008, -2/+12Although the release notes talk about performance, they don't say anything about start up time. I'm on Linux and I would swear that Beta 4 starts up a lot faster than Beta 3 did. It could just be my imagination or a placebo effect.
  • nreynolds, on 03/11/2008, -5/+5I'm having trouble installing a Flash pluggin. (running XP64-bit). Anyone else have trouble? or success?
  • willy1234x1, on 03/11/2008, -1/+83Looks wonderful, I've been using the betas exclusively and can't even imagine going back to Fx2 now.
    • plup, on 03/11/2008, -14/+3You are a man now.
    • MikeCerm, on 03/11/2008, -0/+12I've been using the betas for a few months now, and while many have been updated, there are still a few extensions that I miss from my Fx2 install.
      • Syphon8, on 03/11/2008, -6/+1*Cough adblock*
        • djk21108, on 03/11/2008, -0/+2Cough Google: Nightly Tester Tools.

          See I can do it too!
          • Syphon8, on 03/11/2008, -2/+2It didn't update automatically, as far as I' concerned it doesn't work.
        • hoodedrobin, on 03/11/2008, -0/+6adblock plus works with all the ff3 betas
  • debuffplx, on 03/11/2008, -42/+0*****
  • electromage, on 03/11/2008, -3/+35Dugg with Firefox 3 Beta 4! Can't wait for final, looking forward to it's inclusion in Ubuntu Hardy.
  • Kakcoo, on 03/11/2008, -19/+6Maybe this version use less than fifteen seconds to start up. That would've be great, cause Camino only uses like... two secs.
    • tapeworm77, on 03/11/2008, -4/+18You need to upgrade your Pentium II
    • Blarbo, on 03/11/2008, -0/+1Camino uses the system widgets for UI stuff, firefox uses GTK, which would explain the difference in loading times.
    • luserspaz, on 03/12/2008, -0/+0Have you tried it? It's a lot faster on Mac.
  • crackah, on 03/11/2008, -7/+2RTM already, its at that standard! its an amazing browser. cannot tell its a beta. been using it for about two months now.
    • doshindude, on 03/11/2008, -1/+19rushed products=bad. they can take all the time they want.
    • rmxz, on 03/11/2008, -0/+1crackah:
      If you think you're so much smarter than them - fork the project and RTM yourself. If you're right all the distros will take your version instead of theirs and you'll be famous (and rich from the embedded google searches like the mozilla foundation is)
      .
      Personally I trust them more than you.
    • init100, on 03/11/2008, -0/+2Release To Manufacturing? That isn't really necessary for products that are not shipped on physical media.
  • Kamael, on 03/11/2008, -0/+15It works much better than b3... but that theme still doesn't look right in XP (haven't tried it on Vista yet).
    • stefilini, on 03/11/2008, -0/+7I'm fairly impressed on how it looks on Vista
    • Syphon8, on 03/11/2008, -2/+1I'm not. :(
    • rezzy333, on 03/11/2008, -0/+1thank god its more stable. b3 was crashing on me all the time.
  • NikoKun, on 03/11/2008, -1/+7yay! My beta 3 updated itself this morning. :)
    • gavintlgold, on 03/11/2008, -0/+1The beta update is much smaller than the whole thing, so slow interneters (like me).... do it that way!! :)
  • Dumbledorito, on 03/11/2008, -5/+3I'm disappointed in how FF handles PDF files. Mozilla says to install Acrobat Reader, but I already have Pro, which FF doesn't seem to "see" like every other program I run in Windows. Pro won't let me install Reader (and why would I? It's like downgrading). WTFF4.0?
    • slashbot, on 03/11/2008, -0/+1did you try "repairing" your pro installation? I had to do that when I installed FF *after* installing Pro. When I did that, it worked.
    • mojoel, on 03/11/2008, -1/+6https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/636
      That was my only complaint about FF. Recently I downloaded PDF Download, which allows me to download the PDF instead of suprising me and trying to open it in the browser. This is not a fix but a workaround that makes me a happy camper.
      • Dumbledorito, on 03/11/2008, -0/+7Dugg. Thank you. However, you have provided actual useful information instead of retaliatory language, so you will be docked several internet points and sent to a reeducation IRC channel.
    • chikmag777, on 03/11/2008, -0/+5In FF: Tools > Options >> then under File Types click Manage, select PDF from the list, click Change Action and then set the default action/program you want to execute upon downloading a PDF file. No repairing and no new extensions necessary.
    • latrosicarius, on 03/11/2008, -0/+1Personally I download the "PDF Download" extension, which brings up a button every time it tries to browse a PDF that says: Download | Open in Firefox | Open in Acrobat (or Foxit or whatever ur PDF viewer is).

      It's a very convenient and unobtrusive extension. I typically never view it in the browser b/c that just makes it slow as crap and uses so much memory.
  • praveenmarkandu, on 03/11/2008, -1/+15add this into userChrome.css to resize the location bar to a decent size:
    .ac-comment {
    font-size: 100%! important;
    }

    .ac-url-text {
    font-size: 100% ! important;
    }
    • sheehan, on 03/11/2008, -8/+0Not a bad tip, but for most people, you don't need any code with the built-in resizer between the location & search boxes?
      • praveenmarkandu, on 03/11/2008, -1/+4you have no idea what this does do you. it changes the font size of the location bar
    • iperalta, on 03/12/2008, -0/+1thanx for that...
  • Scroogl, on 03/11/2008, -2/+7Arrr, and my extensions just got upgraded to b3.

    Oh well this looks worth it.
    • insertAliasHere, on 03/11/2008, -1/+5If you are trying to say that your extensions got disabled because of compatibility, you could try this (at your own risk):
      go to the page about:Config
      create a new boolean called: extensions.checkCompatibility
      set to: False
      Restart your browser and see if it works.
  • godzillaWax, on 03/11/2008, -2/+28It's unusable for me because of the text zooming. I've got good eyes, and text on most sites is too big for me. In Firefox 2, zooming out slightly decreased the text size. However, with v.3, the jump is pretty large from one size to the next: it goes straight from too big to too small.
    I hope this is something that gets ironed out prior to release, as it makes the internets maddening for those of us that can't handle giganto-text.
    • slashbot, on 03/11/2008, -0/+6I don't use that, but I can imagine how maddening it would be. Can you file a suggestion/bug?
    • doshindude, on 03/11/2008, -11/+2you seem like the type who's never used the internet before 2001.
      • bradleyland, on 03/11/2008, -0/+2You mean back when using 7pt type on websites was "cool"? As someone who just passed 31, I'm pretty happy that we're moving toward more readable fonts.
    • MikeCerm, on 03/11/2008, -0/+1I wish they would have separate the page-zooming and text-resizing functions. I can't increase the text size on my laptop anymore, because pages with fixed-widths of 800 or greater go way outside the browser window.

      Sure, simple text-resizing did screw up a lot of page layouts, but it was nice to have the option.
      • grexeo, on 03/11/2008, -0/+14View -> Zoom -> Zoom Text Only
        • MikeCerm, on 03/11/2008, -0/+1Yeah, I know about that, but I don't want to have to go all the way into the menu to switch it. I'd rather use CTRL+ for page zoom, and ALT+ for text. That's how the Page Zoom extension worked in Fx2, and I like having both options readily available.
    • blindwisdom, on 03/11/2008, -3/+2If adjustable text size is a very important part of your browsing experience, then I highly suggest Opera.
    • comrade693, on 03/11/2008, -0/+1https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/648 ... ?
    • thefinger, on 03/11/2008, -8/+2Oh geez! :( quit bitching already. Go to Tools Options or Edit Preferences and change the font size to whatever defaults you want. Some of us like the larger default font size, but you can set it smaller. Just a few mouse clicks or keystrokes and you're there. Is that so damn hard??
      • trogdoor, on 03/11/2008, -0/+4He is complaining not about the size of the font but rather the size of one 'step' when zooming in or out.
    • rjosal, on 03/11/2008, -0/+1Would a new monitor resolution work?
  • slashbot, on 03/11/2008, -1/+16Does it work with ABP and other extensions?

    If so, will update :). If not, will wait :(
    • bjornski, on 03/11/2008, -2/+36That's why I'm still using FF2. Many of my plug-ins aren't supported in 3 yet.
      • rauz, on 03/11/2008, -0/+7Ditto here, I would make the switch to FF3 and never look back if it the extension developers had updated ABP, RIP and TMP...the other extensions I use I can live without until FF3 goes gold.
    • ukblacknight, on 03/11/2008, -0/+9I've got ABP and IETab running ok on it.
    • djm101, on 03/11/2008, -0/+12Technically they're not supported; in reality they probably run fine. Get the Nightly Tester Tools extension and disable compatibility checking.
      I have ABP and Greasemonkey plus a few others all working fine doing this.
      • bjornski, on 03/11/2008, -0/+3I'll have to try that, thanks for the tip.
      • pltnz64, on 03/11/2008, -0/+5You don't need the tester tools to use ABP. They update ABP with every new beta version in the nightlies.
        • bjornski, on 03/11/2008, -0/+2That's true. But I'm running a lot more than ABP. If the tester tools will let me use some of those older ones, it's very useful info to have.
    • SHv2, on 03/11/2008, -0/+6ABP works fine all the way through Firefox b5pre. They keep that one very regularly updated.
    • insertAliasHere, on 03/11/2008, -0/+3If you want to try your extensions with the beta, you could try this (at your own risk!):
      go to the page about:Config
      create a new boolean called: extensions.checkCompatibility
      set to: False
      Restart your browser and see if it works. This forces the browser not to do a version check and just use the extensions anyway. For what it's worth, ABP and Greasemonkey are working fine for me, but I had to use this trick to enable Greasemonkey.
      • bjornski, on 03/11/2008, -0/+1I'll have to try that, as I use greasemonkey extensively.
    • thefinger, on 03/11/2008, -1/+3backing up profile, stowing it safely away, along with b3
      if b4 is what they say it is, I'm moving on... if not, nothing lost..
    • balaknair, on 03/11/2008, -0/+0ABP and NoScript run just fine on beta4(both these are must-haves for me, but they're both updated regularly)
      I've also got tab scope, secure login and download statusbar working right now. Just need DownThemAll and tabmix to be updated to complete my set of favorites.
  • djm101, on 03/11/2008, -12/+54 tabs open = 160Megs of RAM taken up. What the ***** am I doing wrong or is it meant to be this bad?
    • slashbot, on 03/11/2008, -5/+28nomnomnom
    • murraj2, on 03/11/2008, -2/+304 Tabs and only 160 MB of RAM?

      Sounds like they have been working on performance enhancements.
      • drgmdp, on 03/11/2008, -0/+1wtf? i've 6 tabs (all digg threads with 100+ comments) and peaks 130 MB
    • AppleGeorge, on 03/11/2008, -7/+6Get a new PC. I've had more than 6 tabs open and haven't reached 100MB of RAM being used.
      • djm101, on 03/11/2008, -0/+12Well obviously it depends on the tab doesn't it, thinking now, it was probably more the fact digg was open in every single one; causing it to get raped by flash ads.
        Seems around half that for 4 non-flash sites.
      • Zaggynl, on 03/11/2008, -3/+12Uhm, how is a new PC going to change the fact that his Firefox takes 160mb with 4 tabs?
        • AppleGeorge, on 03/11/2008, -7/+1Um, probably because it's not Firefoxes fault. Buy faster memory, memory that allocates better, a faster CPU, and the cycles won't be so ***** up for you.
    • sint4x, on 03/11/2008, -2/+24 tabs (Gmail, Google Cal, HTML page, and Digg) = 92 MB
      • AppleGeorge, on 03/11/2008, -3/+17 tabs (Gmail, Digg, Bitsoup, UPS Tracking, bitGamer, Newegg, Google Maps Tracking) = 63 MB.
        • theaceoffire, on 03/11/2008, -1/+110231232 tabs (Digg,Digg,Digg,Digg,Digg,Digg,Digg,Digg,Digg,Digg,....) = 53 MB.
    • grexeo, on 03/11/2008, -1/+9Either you want a fast browser that caches as much as possible (using more memory...) or you don't. Firefox won't use much memory if other programs need it. Otherwise it's just a waste.
    • luserspaz, on 03/12/2008, -0/+0Some of it depends on what you open, certainly. Also, are you using any extensions? We're tracking memory issues in certain extensions, but new reports of problem extensions are useful. We're definitely going to try to get some outreach to extension authors to cut down on extension memory leaks.
  • iNunchuk, on 03/11/2008, -1/+8For one thing, opening digg comments is MUCH smoother now, just like Safari 3.0.
    On the other hand, the lack of good (and I know about Schubertit) PDF viewer plugins makes me go back to Safari every time.
    • DrivinWest, on 03/11/2008, -0/+1I'm an avid Safari user, but Firefox 3 could win me over. It seems that b4 has fixed a few of the bugs that bothered me in b3. And wow - it's SO MUCH faster than FF2!
    • thefinger, on 03/11/2008, -1/+3Foxit. End of story.
      • Rooktoven, on 05/20/2008, -0/+0Foxit is windows only. Not a solution.
    • Bamborzled, on 03/12/2008, -0/+1What's wrong with just opening your PDFs in Preview?
      • Rooktoven, on 05/20/2008, -0/+0You may not want copies of every pdf laying around, especially in a corporate environment. With a viewer you place one PDF on a web server, and everyone views it.
  • Dinh0, on 03/11/2008, -8/+1Can't wait for the full version to be available with all the tinkering done. Hopefully they fix the memory whore issue which has plagued the current version and from djm101 seems to be plaguing the beta.

    Right now the beta has so many issues it resembles like a Microsoft Retail Product.
    • SHv2, on 03/11/2008, -0/+5I have absolutely no problems with the latest beta...
      • SHv2, on 03/11/2008, -4/+0*shrugs* Command+w no longer crashes the browser, I'd call that an enhancement. Command+q no longer crashes the browser, I'd call that an enhancement. Need I go on from beta 4 findings?

        This is assuming you're on a mac of course...
        • init100, on 03/11/2008, -0/+1I'm on a Mac at work and neither of those commands crashed my Firefox Beta 3.
          • SHv2, on 03/12/2008, -0/+0i am talking beta 4 here. before it was released a couple days ago.
        • mrdoogee, on 03/11/2008, -0/+2OH NOES I pressed command+q and my browser closed! Can anybody get an update on when they'll fix this bug?

          /don't make me use slashies
          • SHv2, on 03/12/2008, -0/+0uhh... no. it used to give assertion errors and WOULD NOT close
  • palmerized, on 03/11/2008, -0/+8Using it now. Seems good on OS X. The interface has changed a bit. Looks all good, except the back button is MASSIVE. Hmm, not sure I like that, but otherwise, looks OK.
    • MikeCerm, on 03/11/2008, -0/+6There's a reason for that. People use the back button about 50x more than they use the forward button, so they decided that it was silly to make them the same size. It does look weird, but it's more practical this way.
    • Omega697, on 03/11/2008, -1/+1Seems good on OS X? For me it is terribly slow, and playing flash content is unbelievably bad. I used it for about 10 minutes and then went right back to 2.0.0.12. Oh well. I'll give it another shot at beta 5.
    • fixthecomments, on 03/11/2008, -0/+0That, and the favicons being positioned badly into rounded borders.
    • irow, on 03/11/2008, -1/+1The back button is horrible UI design. It looks like a backwards play button. Not good to confuse your users by giving them the wrong UI signals.

      Oh, and Flash doesn't work quite right.
  • MrViklund, on 03/11/2008, -21/+5Stop post duplicate stories. This story was posted over 12 hours ago. http://digg.com/tech_news/Firefox_Beta_4_is_Out
    Marked as duplicate.
  • SHv2, on 03/11/2008, -8/+3Firefox 3 beta 4 is old news for me. :P All about running the betas. Firefox 3b5pre at this point. Just letting you know it only gets better.
  • AppleGeorge, on 03/11/2008, -0/+6Beta 3 worked very well. The only reason I went back to Firefox 2 is because of the lacking support of plugins right now, but as soon as it's finalized, it will definitely be worth it.
  • mGARANDEUR1, on 03/11/2008, -5/+5Interesting...but will it suck up all of the RAM in my computer?
    • djm101, on 03/11/2008, -1/+4Depends how much you have :) It'll give a damn good try though.
    • grexeo, on 03/11/2008, -1/+6Using otherwise unused memory for caching to increase performance = a good thing
      • thatbox, on 03/11/2008, -0/+5Not if it holds onto it when I'm ready to use it for something else :(
    • farTart, on 03/11/2008, -0/+4No, I upgraded yesterday because I was getting really sick of F2's memory usage. I've dropped from 450Mb down to 150Mb!

      I'd forgotten what it was like to code without waiting for swap files :)
    • luserspaz, on 03/12/2008, -0/+0The betas have much improved memory handling. Should use less memory in most situations, and release memory to the OS more often.
  • luchid, on 03/11/2008, -1/+12Something weird has been happening to me using this and b3. Digg pages never finish loading. The throbber and the status bar progress bar never stop, even when it's been fully loaded. Am I the only one with this issue?
    • Pooley, on 03/11/2008, -0/+7Happens to me, too. I've read to the bottom of this page and I've still got 'Transferring data from y.digg.com' and the throbber. I haven't noticed it on any other site.
    • ochito, on 03/11/2008, -0/+1Same thing here with all the betas so far. Page is complete, throbber going ad infinitum and the "transferring" message remains. So which one of us submits the issue to the FF team?
    • Labut, on 03/11/2008, -0/+4Use noscript, ads from microsoft or msn (can't remember the actual name) is causing the loop.
    • ePuck, on 03/11/2008, -12/+0I've said it once and I'll say it again: Firefox is starting to suck!
    • comrade693, on 03/11/2008, -0/+8It's a known issue. See https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=40356 ... for the details. Basically, it's Microsoft's fault for only checking for Firefox 2 or less.
    • uziko, on 03/11/2008, -1/+2yea it's happened since like alpha 5, it's microsofts fault, it's one of the only times microsoft sucks
  • Tserk, on 03/11/2008, -3/+4900 enhancements? I assume an enhancement is defined as a cvs checkin?
  • customer, on 03/11/2008, -6/+14Proto theme is freakin ugly.
  • WWWoody, on 03/11/2008, -0/+5Well, I finally made the jump from FF2.

    All of my addons but gmail notifier and downloadsort work perfectly, the text looks so much clearer (cleartype?) and it seems to be an overall better package.
  • Thistledown, on 03/11/2008, -0/+3Beta 4 is so much faster on the mac than any of the other firefox versions or betas. Scrolling is nice and smooth which is something Safari had over previous Firefox versions, but not anymore.
  • Bstodian, on 03/11/2008, -1/+4Anyone else notice a distinct lack of back/forward buttons by default?
    • WWWoody, on 03/11/2008, -1/+8You mean the gigantic green (grey on launch before you browse) back button?
    • ochito, on 03/11/2008, -0/+3I had that happen to me with beta 3, Bstodian, where my back/forward buttons disappeared and I had to restore them by customizing the bar. Were you by any chance alternating between the beta and FF2? that's what I was doing and it would get munged in both. and WWWoody, clearly he's not seeing the ginormously fugly new buttons or he'd know, so give a fellow digger the benefit of the doubt before jumping all over him.
  • Raian, on 03/11/2008, -2/+12The new mac theme is about as beautiful as a squid making love to a squirrel...
  • melonhedd, on 03/11/2008, -6/+2Did they fix the retarded "searchable" address bar?
    • WWWoody, on 03/11/2008, -0/+5I think it could be more compact/use smaller text, too. I'm sure there's an option -somewhere-.
    • comrade693, on 03/11/2008, -1/+6If by retarded you mean awesome, then yeah, they made it even better!
  • kali25, on 03/11/2008, -21/+2Firefox 3 sucks, Mozilla has jumped the shark and it doing lame stuff. If it had just stayed like apache and not turned into a for profit corporation. Oh well, it was a nice run while it lasted. Hopefully someone else will take the gecko engine and release a slim streamlined browser again. Of course I liked Firefox 1.5 the best. Opera here I come, maybe Safari but it sucks even more.
    • BinaryFragger, on 03/11/2008, -0/+5They're are already are slimmer Gecko browsers.

      Windows: K-Meleon
      http://kmeleon.sourceforge.net/

      OSX: Camino
      http://caminobrowser.org/

      Linux: Epiphany
      http://www.gnome.org/projects/epiphany/
    • ePuck, on 03/11/2008, -3/+0I agree 1.5 was great!! After that, Crash after Crash after Memory leak
      • luserspaz, on 03/12/2008, -0/+0Have you tried one of our recent betas? They're a lot nicer, I promise.
    • chrismartens26, on 03/12/2008, -0/+1If by "lame stuff" you mean "making one of the best browsers you can possibly use right now", then you sir are correct.

      Just because Mozilla is taking in a little paper for making a solid product that tens of thousands of people enjoy, does not correlate to them to being evil. As long as end-users can acquire it for free (and that they WANT it that way), why do you give a *****.
  • lochness, on 03/11/2008, -3/+5Sounds great. Are these ACTUAL improvements... or just "Apple/Steve Jobs.. Leopard has over 300!!! new "features"" features....
    • comrade693, on 03/11/2008, -0/+2They pull these numbers from actually fixed bugs. The bug tracker is open, so you can check yourself even!
  • Vo0Ds, on 03/11/2008, -0/+3I get the forward/back buttons bug too, happens when i've been using FF2 and switching back. Only thing stopping me from using FF3b all the time is foxmarks so i'll see how b4 plays!
    • ochito, on 03/11/2008, -0/+1Exactly the same behavior for me VoODs. I thought about filling a ticket, but since it's the switching that screws it up, I don't want to waste the dev team's time. I'll use 3 exclusively when they release the final and all my extensions work. Currently using about 20 and only 1 or 3 would update to work with the betas.
  • momsshizzle, on 03/11/2008, -8/+1OMG!!! : /
  • Ev3nt372, on 03/11/2008, -10/+2IE8 Beta> Firefox3 Beta. All of the Addons still work in the IE8 Beta and the IE8 Beta literally just replaces IE7. I love my Firefox 2 addons and they are popular enough that hopefully they will get Firefox3 support when it is finalized.
    • i4mt3hwin, on 03/11/2008, -0/+9Why the hell would I want a beta to replace my stable browser? What if something I need to do doesn't work in the beta version? Also IE blows in general -- personally I like Opera but you cannot even seriously use > sign with IE on the left.
      • drgmdp, on 03/11/2008, -1/+1he was comparing beta to beta...
        • theaceoffire, on 03/11/2008, -0/+2And IE Beta still should not be on the left.
    • planetexpress, on 03/11/2008, -0/+3Why don't you just turn off version checking for your extensions? Most of mine work fine after upgrading.
      extensions.checkCompatibility = false is what you want
    • luchid, on 03/11/2008, -1/+6You mean the IE8 beta that gets a lower score at the Acid 3 test than IE6?
    • init100, on 03/11/2008, -0/+1"the IE8 Beta literally just replaces IE7."

      You mean the IE that disables Windows Update and redirects the user to a page that says that they have to use at least IE5? ;)
  • sremick, on 03/11/2008, -4/+14I've been running the nightlies. They run a LOT better than FF2, but this new theme makes me want to drill holes in my skull to distract me from the ugliness.

    I do not look forward to having to put a custom theme on every install of FF3 I do just to prevent user backlash. FF2 was actually beautiful and polished. What the hell happened with FF3?
  • thailand1972, on 03/11/2008, -11/+2Gotta say - I prefer Opera - much lighter.
  • shinguards13, on 03/11/2008, -0/+6...Home Key? Come on now, I found that pretty useful.
    • comrade693, on 03/11/2008, -0/+4It's been moved to the bookmarks toolbar by default. You can always move it back!
    • thefinger, on 03/11/2008, -1/+1If you're in Windows, ALT+HOME.
  • bsdboy, on 03/11/2008, -0/+4Safari's been pissing me of lately. Here goes Ff3b4... so far so good!
  • jayleb, on 03/11/2008, -0/+17Is anyone facing an issue where (only) digg.com keeps loading endlessly even if the page is fully displayed unless you press stop? This started with me in Beta 3. I thought it would be fixed in Beta 4 but that is still not the case :(
  • mentor972, on 03/11/2008, -1/+1Oh good, another Firefox beta to lock up on me constantly. Sorry, but I'll wait for the real release.
  • Canadian0207, on 03/11/2008, -3/+3I just tried Opera for the firs time. That browser is the fastest browser i've ever used!!! Too bad there are still incompatibility issues with opera or that would be my browser of choice!
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