Development of Mozilla Firefox 4 has been excruciatingly slow from an outside perspective.
However this is because the last Beta version, 8, is the so-called “feature-freeze” after which no new features can be introduced and the product enters a bug-fixing and performance improvement stage.
Why the delays? Some ideas:
- · There was an internal Beta 7, but so far it has not been released to the public and it may never see the daylight, probably because it harbours serious bugs (54 according to the team’s meeting notes)
- · The Mozilla team has been dedicating too many resources to Firefox for the Android OS (beta 1 released just a few days ago, beta 2 due on Oct 19th) and adding the Bing search-engine as an option.
- · Beta 7 alone is supposed to fix over 60 bugs according to sources close to the company, some of which were never made public and fixed on-the-fly.
- · Beta 8 introduces true 64-bit support and graphics acceleration on par with IE9 beta, i.e. finally making use of Direct2D and OpenGL to speed up the browsing experience in terms of rendering.
- · Post-summer slacking has set in at Mozilla central (less likely than above).
What to expect from FF4:
Windows users (and probably also Mac users) will experience noticeable changes in speed while browsing graphics-intensive websites and especially upgrades to functionality that should facilitate the 3D, social and interactive web experience some are calling Web 3.0.
Some people report negative changes in speed do to increased functionality however, so don’t hold your horses just yet on that -- this PC still takes over 20 seconds to boot Windows 7, even though instant-on has theoretically been available for years (i.e. by loading the operating system on ROM or RAM and not on slow hard drives). Changes under-the-hood also include updates to CSS3 and HTML5 support, improved crash protection and multitouch support.
Interface changes include sychronization with mobile devices, improvements in tabbed browsing, a new add-on system.
Firefox 4 (alongside the coming IE9) underscores 5 dramatic trends in browsing, demonstrating the direction of content and functionality on cyberspace.
The Five Senses: browsers have begun implementing true HTML5 multimedia support, including the ability to directly stream audio and video, improving support for new compressed image formats and animation. Someday soon we will “smell” a website too and “feel” it with our hands (haptics); expect APIs and human-interface devices for this to surface around 2016, hitting the mass market around 2020.
· One Size fits all: extensions are becoming increasingly popular that improve support for social applications like Twitter, but also to do almost anything with your browser; this development is similar to the market for iPhone apps.
· The Browser-Takeover Browsers are becoming more and more like an OS, especially Google Chrome. Thus upgrading them will be ever more critical to universities and cutting-edge companies, and eventually, a must for nearly everyone.
· Growing Power of WOM: The voice of the web is becoming increasingly important: consider how many people bashed IE5,6,7 and 8 on forums and blogs and in the press and how Microsoft finally gave in to popular demand, creating IE 9 (after losing nearly half of the browser market to Firefox).
· Choice & Interconnectivity: you can select your browser’s skin. Remember the good old Winamp-Player for mp3s? You can get customized browsers and operating systems for your mobile phone phone, ipod touch, subnotebook or ipad. Expect operating systems to enter everything from your car, to your chair and coffee cup. No joke. Choice means increasing complexity however, so get ready to learn new things. And did you know that you can close your NYC apartment’s window-shade from your parents’ laptop using the internet?
The future is bright for cyberspace, but in the next weeks, we hope Mozilla gets its act together and releases Beta 8 of Firefox 4 soon so that we can get a release candidate or even final version for Xmas (or whatever people celebrate this winter).
Please feel free to comment on what direction you think browsers and the web are headed and what you wish to see for future releases of Firefox, Chrome, Safari, Opera and IE.
In the short term, faster, responsive, streamlined. Resource hogs will start running up against tablets and smartphones, so programmers will find that they aren't allowed to become lazy.
Neat trick, considering 1) I don't and never will have an apartment in NYC (too congested and filthy), 2) My window shades aren't connected to Internet, and 3) My parents don't have a laptop.
Future releases? How about something that works, doesn't crash every other time, and doesn't leak like a sieve. In other words, stop adding crap and fix the crap you got.
Oh, and yeah, stop trying to take over MY computer. The key word there is MY, not your. I'll decide what runs on it and what doesn't, not a bunch of pathetic, snot-nosed, basement-dwelling script kiddies with zero social life.
When I learned for the first time firefox 4 was on the track to be released, I thought: Great, at last they are going to make this thing multithreaded, to be on par with other competing browsers. But they instead only chose to make all changes purely cosmetic (from my point of view).
Indeed, this upcoming release is an epitome of vanity.
i was ready to throw out my TATAPHOTON when working with I.E. now i am using MOZILLA speedly with same connection.due to speed i applied broadband connection
of AIRTEL .but when i came to know about MOZZILA i am using TATAPHOTON speedly I no need of AIRTEL broadband
virusfree softwares and donot harm my c drive
(once upon was with I.EXPLORER.)
during offline stored pages are in sychronsation when I click on any saved page to go other page just one click on curser (hand ,one finger up hand curser idonot know what will say to it ) is needed .you have just one click the addressd page (if is saved ) will come instently
one more thing mozzila should do (i speak it a hand curser((( i think you understood))) should show a CROSS or CIRCLE if that sitepage in not in memory of saved pages so then i can think no need to click on this page because it is not in saved pages .
I was yesterday very happy when I
installed MOZZILA on my friend's comp.i appriciate MOZZILA,S team and best of luck because GOD HELPS THOSE WHO HELPS SOCITY WITHOUT MONEY.i also want MOZZILS MEMBER PLEASE GUIDE
INDUPALSINGH
Look at the purple line, that is the current Firefox4 javascript engine being used since beta7. They are finally speeding up Firefox's javascript considerably! There is room for much more optimization though so expect it to get even faster.
I don't like the automatic assumption you make, that Mozilla "getting its act together" equates to it putting out a new Beta release. It show much more maturity in a software development organization, if they hold onto their release until the features they want are ready to be shown.
After all, the same people baying for a Beta release, will be the first ones to throw toys when that Beta contains bugs, and suddenly your calls of "getting acts together" will refer to bug severities, rather than release schedules.
For my part, I'd rather see a fully thought out and tested April release, than a rushed Christmas outing which is created to meet the demands of people who know little of software development processes.
Give Mozilla a chance. There are more new features in FF4 than there were in any of their previous major releases, against a backdrop of significantly more expectation from a better-educated general public, and significantly more competition that they can retreat to if Mozilla get it wrong.
After all, as the article suggests, we now talk of modern browsers as fully fledged OSes in their own right, which is a significant change of mindset since the day of FF3. Don't put unnecessary pressure on them which will lead to them botching it up.
And besides, if you're really that much of a tech glutton that you can't wait for the next beta, go get the nightly downloads, where you can get a whole bunch of half-baked features that are only buzzing to punch unnecessary holes in your computer's security.
My interest with FF4 comes more towards how the Direct2D/OpenGL could assist with the rendering of HD video streaming through HTML5. As a budding film-maker and writer, the possibility of being able to stream my content through a non-commercial process (ie, not Flash/Youtube) is the most exciting prospect personally.