Firefox 4: Preview

Firefox 4 features and talk abouts:

• Complete Multi-process architecture to take advantage of multi-core processors.
• New add-on framework Jetpack instead of current XUL, which will make addon/plugin developers life easy along with New add-on manager.
• New JägerMonkey JavaScript Engine
• TaskFox: see live demo in action
  
• Major UI Redesign: with design inspiration from Opera 10 and Chrome.
• More Standard Compliant: Major support coming in with Firefox 4 are:
  - CSS Transition
  - CSS touch properties
  - Forms in HTML5
  - HTML5 Sections
  - Support for WebM video
  - WebGL
  Check out complete list of features and standards support at Firefox 4 for Developers.

What others are talking about? (Formally Firefox 3.7 now Firefox 4):

Mashable, CNet and Geek Technica. What's your vote for Firefox 4?Similar Posts:

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Firefox 3.6 with Personas

I love to update my computer with every new release Firefox comes up with and this time it has lovely Personas. Previewing a theme is so easy with it..! Just like Google Chrome and it's fast as well.

I liked the fact that almost all majorly used Firefox extensions were working with this update except "Microsoft .NET Framework Assistance" which is probably not compatible since Firefox 3.5.6 version.

What's new in Firefox 3.6? (as per release notes from Mozilla)

Firefox 3.6  is built on Mozilla's Gecko 1.9.2 web rendering platform, which has been under development since early 2009 and contains many improvements for web developers, add-on developers, and users. This version is also faster and more responsive than previous versions and has been optimized to run on small device operating systems such as Maemo.

New & Notable Firefox 3.6 features include:

• Available in more than 70 languages - get your local version.
• Support for a new type of theme called Personas, which allow users to change Firefox's appearance with a single click.
• Protection from out-of-date plugins to keep users safer as they browse.
• Open, native video can now be displayed full screen and supports poster frames.
• Improved JavaScript performance, overall browser responsiveness, and startup time.
• The ability for web developers to indicate that scripts should run asynchronously to speed up page load times.
• Continued support for downloadable web fonts using the new WOFF font format.
• Support for new CSS attributes such as gradients, background sizing, and pointer events.
• Support for new DOM and HTML5 specifications including the Drag & Drop API and the File API, which allow for more interactive web pages.
• Changes to how third-party software can integrate with Firefox in order to prevent crashes.

Here is what builderau.com.au has to say on Firefox 3.6 release

Mozilla debuted Firefox 3.6 on Thursday, introducing significant under-the-hood changes that make it faster, help it render content better and a few visual tweaks, as well.

Available for Windows, Mac and Linux, the most apparent changes in Firefox 3.6 are improvements made to the TraceMonkey JavaScript rendering engine, making it about 20 per cent faster than when it debuted in Firefox 3.5, according to Mozilla. Although this makes it more competitive with Google Chrome, but not faster, there's more to Firefox 3.6 than speed.

Firefox maintains its reputation as the most customisable browser around, introducing default support for the next generation of Themes, called Personas. Users will no longer have to download the Personas add-on to get its on-the-fly skinning power. However, Windows 7 interface support, including tab previews using the Ctrl+Tab hot key, jump lists and multiple tab previews in Aero Peek will have to wait for another revision. Currently, these can only be activated by changing settings in about:config.

Several notable improvements keep Firefox abreast of current browsing tech. Significant under-the-hood changes include blocking third-party software from encroaching on Firefox's file system turf to increase stability; support for the Web Open Font Format, which means users viewing pages in other languages should see faster load times via downloadable fonts; and support for the File interface, which can help with tasks such as uploading multiple photos and is part of the draft HTML5-standard effort. Open, native video can be displayed full screen and supports poster frames, which is the preview image you see before a video begins, and the new CSS attributes gradients, background sizing and pointer events will work in Firefox 3.6.

HTML5 support debuted in Firefox 3.5, and Firefox remains the leading web browser that supports it. This is not insignificant, because even with Google Chrome grabbing more than 4 per cent of the browser market in its first 16 months, Firefox maintains a commanding 24 per cent that hasn't stopped growing, second only to Internet Explorer.

A deeper change to the browser is that it is now running scripts asynchronously, which can help to load a web page faster by putting off some work until the high-priority chores are complete. Firefox 3.6 also isolates out-of-date plug-ins so they do not become a security risk.

Unlike Firefox 3.5, which was more about keeping the browser current rather than blazing new trails, Firefox 3.6 is once again taking some small but innovative steps. Expect more new features to debut in minor-point updates as the browser works towards Firefox 3.7.

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So I got my Firefox 3.x alert claiming that newer and better version 3.5 is available and it's a recommended upgrade. Just now before couple of hours I have updated to Firefox 3.5 using it's auto-updater feature and when it restored previously open tabs and I noticed first change in this blogs title fonts.

Here, in below image you can see blog post title which has taken "Lucida Grande" as Font to render and it was same for rest of the browsers as well. Because Internet Explorer, Safari and Chrome all display it in the same manner.

Blog Title in FireFox-3.x with Font-Family: "Union","Lucida Grande","Lucida Sans Unicode",Arial,Helvetica

Blog Title in FireFox-3.5 with Font-Family: "Union","Lucida Grande","Lucida Sans Unicode",Arial,Helvetica

If you had any recent experience after upgrading to Firefox 3.5 please share on this post by replying as comments.Similar Posts:

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Recently I was deploying one of my project on client end. Basically it was a Web Application but unlike other setups they were going to use that by terminal access. Meaning that all Users of the Portal will be having unique login into their(client's) Windows Network Domain and users will be logging into the Portal by logging into the Server machine first with given Windows domain credentials and then to the Portal.

This setup seems to be easy and no worry as whole portal will be accessed via LOCALHOST only..! Looks odd for any web-application though but that was the requirement for the client (keeping their security concerns in mind).

I have been given Administrative User to login to the server machine and setup everything. I did setup and did my post implementation testing on the machine with my user. Everything seems to be working as expected and I gave green flag to my superior.

Later on I have been buzzed with 2 issues from the Client.

1. Portal is not working in Internet Explorer at all.
2. Users are not able to download files from my Portal.

I asked for login details they used for testing and which they were actually going to give to their Users.

Problems & their Solutions:

1. Portal is not working in Internet Explorer at all.

I got the test account into their Windows domain and logged in to portal. Due to some domain may be set via Active Directory on Windows server users are having limited rights. I have tried modifying security settings on IE but of no use. I can't override them with my given windows credentials. The reason behind not working in IE was that given Windows User was not having enough rights to create ActiveX object and due to that we were not able to create ActiveX object for Ajax call from the browser..! This was the serious issue. I downloaded and installed Firefox 3 which was the latest available that time on the client machine. Portal was working flawless on the Firefox and there can't be any ActiveX issue for Firefox and so not with Ajax.

I demonstrated things working well with Firefox and explained Client's Network guy to deal with the issue for security settings.

2. Users are not able to download files from my Portal.

Firefox Download Blocked

Here goes another issue to be solved. File downloads were not working neither from Firefox nor from IE. I was hopping that with Firefox windows security policy should not matter much and I will get things done. They were using Internet Explorer 6 on Windows Server 2003 and I have already uninstalled Enhanced Internet Security settings. Even with Firefox 3 I was getting this error "This download has been blocked by your security zone policy". I thought that at least Firefox should not worry about Security Zone Policy. But with Firefox3 it inherits Windows/IE security settings. I did some goggling and found that this was supposed to happen with Firefox 3 for executable files, but it was happening in my case even for RTF files.

There is way to modify some parameter of Mozilla Firefox using "about:config". In case you came up to this post in google by searching same problem following links could help you out.

http://forums.mozillazine.org/viewtopic.php?f=38&t=673575&st=0&sk=t&sd=a&start=0
http://kb.mozillazine.org/Unable_to_save_or_download_files#Reset_system_Internet_security_settings_-_Windows
http://kb.mozillazine.org/Image:Fx3exeBlocked.png
http://support.mozilla.com/sq/kb/unable+to+download+or+save+files

But things didn't worked out fast enough for me after changing some settings in Firefox Config but any way mean while I did un-installation of Firefox 3 and installed Firefox 2.X and here I go..! Things were working like breeze again.

Firefox 3 respects the Windows setting for downloads, you need to adjust the Windows settings. For details see the Reset system Internet security settings section of unable to download or save files.

I know it's not a permanent solution but I needed quick fix that time.

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