Firefox 4 Beta 9 Out, Now With IndexedDB and Tabs On Titlebar 537
surveyork writes "''Mozilla today officially released Firefox 4 Beta 9 and it's a big improvement over previous betas and a parsec beyond the Firefox 3.6.x experience. At this stage, after months of development, Mozilla developers are clearly nearing the end of this development marathon.' After Firefox beta 9, a beta 10 and a single RC are scheduled (this road map can change, of course). The main features of Firefox beta 9 are IndexedDB and tabs on titlebar (just like Chrome and Opera). IndexedDB allows sites to store data on your computer (with your prior authorization). Tabs on titlebar is self-explanatory. Old-schoolers can always turn on the 'show menu bar' to get their familiar GUI back. Oh, and Fx beta 9 is fast and starts fast. Firefox beta 9 available here and in lots of official mirrors."
Chrome... (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Tabs on Titlebar Issues (Score:5, Interesting)
The trade-off is between using Aero Snap, something users do only rarely, and not repeatedly during a browser session, and benefiting from Fitts's Law as you switch between tabs, something users do all the time. The current thinking is that it's better to optimize features for the overwhelmingly common case at the expense of the exceedingly rare case.
Re:Still busted (Score:5, Interesting)
Now up to Firefox 4.0b9 and STILL you can't watch Flash videos with 64-bit Flash on 64-bit Firefox on Mac OS X. It's been two or three betas now since they broke this, and they just refuse to fix it..
In November 2010 they fixed a bug that was originally submitted in November 2000. That's Not a typo. 10 years ago. So just get in line and wait your turn.
Re:Status Bar??? (Score:3, Interesting)
The status bar is gone for good. Why? Because the developers said so, and like many other decisions, they couldn't care less what the users think and apparently have so much free time on their hands that they constantly look for ways to fix things that don't need fixing.
I am a Firefox dev, and I see what you mean about the status bar - it's definitely controversial. But we definitely do care what users think. If this was a mistake, then it was a mistake made in good intentions, because we thought it would be useful to our users. We're not making a browser for ourselves, but for many millions of people.
Again, I'm not defending this particular decision, of the status bar removal - I am personally not in favor of it.
Overall, though, I truly believe that the features for 4.0 are ones Firefox users like - speed, HTML5 support, stability.
Re:Status Bar??? (Score:5, Interesting)
Menu is TinyMenu, Back/Forward appear and disappear depending on where in the tab's history you are, the "B" is bookmarks. User agent, ABP and a few other useful plugins make FF 3.6 a firm favourite of mine for the foreseeable future.
Re:Tabs in the title bar are a disgrace. (Score:3, Interesting)
You're the perfect example of the minority who appears to dislike the new changes. Let me guess, you also hate the Office 2007+ UI, assuming you've ever used it?
I'm not trying to be an ass, but really, the Firefox devs are going by the majority here. I love the new changes - give me as much space as possible for the website, let the browser get the hell out of the way. Tabs on top and no status bar shave off pixels that can be used for the website, the actual content. If they could find a way to combine the search bar without breaking functionality, I'd be happy with that too. You see, in my view it's streamlining the interface as much as possible. Having tabs on top is in fact a more logical layout since it encompasses the URL bar too, which is related to the tab you're on. I'm not even trying to make an analogy because sometimes, guess what, a UI doesn't have to reflect a real-world thing. It can just be the optimal solution to the problem.
The status bar, I don't really see the problem. Unless your URL is some sort of behemoth, you'll see it entirely. If it is in fact THAT long, then it'll cut off the middle section, giving you the really important information anyways: the site's domain and the page you're going to. It's also not there when there's nothing to be shown, which is good - less clutter is good. If you want to see more of the URL, just remove stuff in your main bar. I have the previous button auto-minimize when it's unavailable, I've moved the Home button to the tabs bar, I have the very minimum number of buttons and my search bar is very small, so my URL bar is basically maximized, thus allowing me to see all but the most cumbersome of URLs.
And that's the thing, really: I like the changes. I'm sure I'm not alone. It's probably even that there's an overwhelming majority of people who like the changes. I'm sorry that you don't like the changes, but thankfully the developers are fully aware that there will always be people to whine on any and all change and they make sure an extension can always be built to address this. You can say they could build the extension themselves or incorporate it in the actual build, but I say they have better things to do than to cater to a minority and that building the option in would probably just cause more bloat. Ironically enough, those who complain of the changes also often complain of bloat.
Re:Status Bar??? (Score:4, Interesting)