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Firefox 4 is being released Tuesday and if you followed my blog for the past few months and ready my comments about the betas, I ripped it to shreds. That being said, they really cleaned it up by the time the Release Candidate hit and now I have to say I’m a fan. Sorry for being critical – it was for your own good. And for the most part, it’s decent. I will still use both browsers. But these things need some work:

• Why on earth are App Tabs deleted if history is cleared? I want to keep Gmail in its own app tab. But I also like clearing my history on close. This apparently deletes the app tab. The point of an App Tab is to be a static part of the browser. Chrome remembers them. They should not be stored in the session. That’s nonsense.
• The default toolbar layout is confusing as hell. Why is the refresh button to the right of the location bar and why is the home button and bookmarks button all the way on the right? Also, see that little dropdown arrow on the tab bar? No one knows what that does (it’s tab candy) (PS – ignore my FireBug button. That’s not there by default.
• Still not as fast as Chrome – They did an amazing job with the new JavaScript engine. It benchmarks only about 50-100ms slower than Chrome’s V8. Which is pretty good considering that 3.6 is slower than shit and is  400-500ms slower.
• 97/100 on Acid 3. Where are the other 3 points?

Where is it better than Chrome?

• Hardware acceleration – On Microsoft’s FishIE Tank, Chrome runs like shit. Firefox is decent. I still think IE9 is faster though which is straight up pathetic.
• Printing – Google doesn’t seem to think it’s important to put printing options in the browser.

Overall, a very solid browser. I take back my previous rants about it.

It looks like Mozilla doesn’t give two shits about anyone who still has Windows XP, because I downloaded the Firefox 4 beta and almost vomited a little bit when I took one look at it. It’s a wannabe Google Chrome ripoff that just fails miserably in the UI department.

They got one thing right and put tabs on top. The only thing is, they still use the native Windows XP window, which makes it look old school. Google Chrome uses its own. Even Microsoft Office doesn’t use the native XP window buttons anymore.

Anyway, there is an option to put the tabs back on the bottom for anyone who doesn’t like change. I don’t know why anyone in their right mind would do this. It looks like absolute shit that way (see screenshot 2 below). You get layers of multicolored bars all over the place. Mozilla should be ashamed releasing this to the public like that.

Windows XP screenshots (Click to expand):

In their defense, it does look pretty good on Windows Vista/7 with Aero enabled, but there’s a bunch of wasted space. That Firefox button can be eliminated completely.

Why else does Firefox 4 suck?

• Mozilla needs to get their shit together with the javascript engine. Chome’s V8 is killing it
• Bottom statusbar has to go. It’s a waste of space
• Firefox’s implementation of private browsing sucks balls. It should be done on a window by window basis like chrome. Plus, the entire browser flickers and the window disappears and reappears when i switch modes. I absolutely despise being in private browsing and then being like – let me log into this site automatically (cookies) – oh wait, I can’t… Rather than just pulling up a window. The only thing I like about it is that you can set it to be in permanent private browsing mode, which is good for Firefox portable on my flash drive.

GET YOUR SHIT TOGETHER. I want to like Firefox, but with Chrome out there, I really can’t right now.

Oh Firefox, how you disappoint thee. It was once the perfect, most amazing browser. But the browser war taken a vast toll on you. At the turn of the decade, I wrote a detailed post explaining why I was disappointed with Firefox.  I still use Firefox as my main browser, but why? It’s clear that Safari and Chrome support better HTML5 and CSS3 standards. Now IE9 (GASP) and Opera are catching up. Opera?! What a joke. Not really. I just saw a new beta screenshot and specs for Opera and it was the reason for this ramble.

Let me tell you something: Firefox 4 better be amazing when it’s released by the end of the year, because Firefox 3.6 quickly turning into the worst browser out of the major HTML5/CSS3 enabled ones. (IE is automatically excluded). Not only is Javascript speed abysmal, but it’s GUI is clunky.

I always frowned upon Opera because it seemed like a waste to compete with Firefox. Its old version looked like a mess. But now, that looks similar to Firefox 3.6. Once Google Chrome came out with its simplistic UI and fast JS engine, I was impressed. Now it looks like Opera has added HTML5 goodies, speed and a sweet new UI that shares a resemblance with Google Chrome.

Unless Firefox 4 looks like this (which I assure you it doesn’t based on the nightly releases), and they fix their horrid javascript performance (compared with Safari, Chrome and now Opera), they have zero bragging rights.

Unless you’re using IE, you’re still fine by me, but Mozilla really is going to the birds right now. It’s kind of disappointing how these newcomers just run away with performance and features, and something that I’ve been using since 2004, that has always been the leader, is fading.

I’m expecting Firefox 4 to be a quality release that is competitive with Google Chrome and any other new browser still in development. God forbid IE9 outperforms Firefox – I’ll kill 4 kittens.

PS – this is random, but there’s just something about Safari that pisses me off. I don’t know why. Maybe I just hate Apple.