Firefox 4.0b7 Discussion, Problems, Issues

[Uncle Spellbinder]

So lets go, discuss Beta 7 here...........

[wmarcello]

So just a quick question, sorry if it's been answered ad nauseum... is beta 7 simply a snapshot of a particular nightly? If so, which date?

[Bluefang]

The branch happened on November 4th.

https://wiki.mozilla.org/Releases/Firef ... BuildNotes

[michaell522]

Thought it might be good to review the changes from beta 6.

Release notes: http://www.mozilla.com/en-US/firefox/4. ... easenotes/

What's new (from the release notes):

• Uses JägerMonkey, a new, faster JavaScript engine
• WebGL is enabled by default on Windows and Mac OS X. WebGL support requires an OpenGL-capable graphics
  card. Support for other graphics cards on Windows (specifically Intel GPUs) and Linux will be coming in a future beta
• Certain rendering operations are now hardware-accelerated using Direct3D 9 on Windows XP, Direct3D 10 on Windows Vista and 7, and OpenGL on Mac OS X
• Improved web typography using OpenType with support for ligatures, kerning and font variants
• HTML5 Forms API makes web based forms easier to implement and validate

Some other significant changes (taken from Burning edge)

• 61098 - Allow aborting modal alert() loops in javascript.
• 544816 - Attach combined Stop/Go/Refresh button to the Location Bar.
• 492544 - Add 'Paste and Go' + 'Paste and Search' to context menu on location field + search field.
• 587908 - On hyperlink hover, display the target in the location bar.
• 574688 - Replace the status bar with the addon bar.
• 602964 - new deterministic throbbers (remove progress line added after beta 6; add new connecting and loading tab icons).
• 575561 - App tabs: external links should open in new tabs instead of replacing the app tab's page.
• 603298 - Add Bing to the default en-US search plugins; remove Answers.com and CC.

The complete changelist from the previous beta

And yes, it's basically the same as the 4th November nightly, rebuilt with branding. It is identical to the candidate build 1 for beta 7.

[rush_ad]

RC1 and released are identical builds, no need to reinstall

[wmarcello]

The branch happened on November 4th.

https://wiki.mozilla.org/Releases/Firef ... BuildNotes

So just trying to get this straight. When the branch happens on November 4th, that's a snapshot of that day's nightly, correct? From that point onward, there is basically a feature freeze and only bug fixes in the following nightlies are incorporated into the branch?

[LoudNoise]

Split the conversation about Beta 8 here: viewtopic.php?f=23&t=2030441 and locked it since it was answered. Keep this on topic please.

[patrickjdempsey]

In addition to michaell's list, there are also major improvements and fixes involved in Panorama and the new Addons Manager, and the RSS Feeds button in the Urlbar has been removed and moved to the Customize palette. The Addons Manager is now closer to the "In-Content UI" mockups and streams data from addons.mozilla.org. They have also removed the Back/Forward dropmarker, as well as notification of Open Search plugins in the search engine button. Also, the Firefox button will now glow purple in Private Browsing mode (because the page title that usually shows this status is missing).

[signe]

michaell,

Not everyone is on nightlies. I used to run Namaroka nightlies, but I haven't bothered on FF4. A lot of us are upgrading from b6 to b7. Users who are upgrading from 3.6 to 4.0 are going to be a lot whinier than any early-adopters are. The statusbar changes (e.g.) just changed how I've known my browsers to run for decades. The fact that the bar is too big for the icons *looks* like a display bug. The icons changing positions also looks like a bug. I haven't even bothered to see if statusbar text still displays, but if that's gone too there's going to be a real issue.

[LoudNoise]

Discussions about changes in the UI have been split off to here: viewtopic.php?f=23&t=2030459

OK folks, this is not going to be a bitch thread. UI changes happened long ago. If you are annoyed you should either post in the UI thread or start a new one.

Littlemutt and michaell. I split off your comment since they no longer make sense. If you want me to put the back let me know in Moderation thread.

[hakubo]

I see no obvious improvement in JS speed compared to beta 6. Is this to be expected?
Also, I'm getting ~800 points in V8 version 6 (and even less than that in Safe Mode), which is considerably less than the scores listed in the release announcement on the Mozilla blog.
Win7 x64, Phenom II X2 550, 4 Gb RAM, Radeon HD 4850, D2D & DW enabled according to about:support, the only false *jit* prefs in about:config are methodjit.chrome and jitprofiling.chrome.

[patrickjdempsey]

hakubo, you can ask detailed JS questions here:
viewtopic.php?f=23&t=1948595&start=1125

To my understanding, B7 should include the most profound of the improvements that are happening... 64-bit performance is not as good as 32-bit performance yet, but it should still be better than B6.

[KWierso]

I see no obvious improvement in JS speed compared to beta 6. Is this to be expected?
Also, I'm getting ~800 points in V8 version 6 (and even less than that in Safe Mode), which is considerably less than the scores listed in the release announcement on the Mozilla blog.
Win7 x64, Phenom II X2 550, 4 Gb RAM, Radeon HD 4850, D2D & DW enabled according to about:support, the only false *jit* prefs in about:config are methodjit.chrome and jitprofiling.chrome.

Safe Mode disables the Jaegermonkey javascript engine, so it makes sense that it'd get worse scores than non-safe-mode.

[Omega X]

Just to add, SafeMode disable all JIT.

Also, if you hate the Status Bar changes, Bluefang created an add-on called Status 4 ALL that replaces things that were changed or removed.

[hakubo]

Safe Mode disables the Jaegermonkey javascript engine, so it makes sense that it'd get worse scores than non-safe-mode.

Oh, good to know. I hope that'll be changed for the final release, since Safe Mode is probably the first thing people try when troubleshooting addons.
Speaking of which, as soon as I disabled Firebug (1.7a5), the score increased to 2900. I guess it's still very 'alpha'.