Silicon Shecky

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Firefox 4 – Did they get it right?

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Firefox 4 is out. For a browser that re-sparked the browser wars, Firefox had been falling behind lately. Can 4 bring back Firefox?

I have a tendency not to download betas of web browsers. I’m not much of a bug hunter, haven’t been able to establish myself in those communities, don’t have a ton of time for actual hard core testing, and I’m not a developer. I just like having things work, especially where web browsing is concerned. So when I heard that Firefox 4’s final release was going to be the exact same as the last Release Candidate, I decided to actually jump the gun and start using it. I figured it couldn’t be any worse than using 3.6.

I’ve been using Firefox as my main browser since version 2, and overall have liked it. There have always been some issues with it, such as the memory hole it has, but they were things I could mostly live with. As  Firefox 3 kept getting updated though, it was all getting worse and worse. To open my iGoogle home page, which is set up with a bunch of news widgets, would take 5 minutes. Not only that, but the whole browser would be slow and unresponsive until it fully opened.

So I finished downloading Firefox 4 and installing it, expecting the same sluggishness. Surprisingly to me, my iGoogle paged opened in under a minute, and I was all set to go to other websites in other tabs, even while the iGoogle page was loading up. This is starting to look promising.

I continued on my browsing way, going to sites I frequent such as Tech Republic, ZDNet, Krebs on Security, and many more. All rendered faster than in Firefox 3.6. I did run into an occasional site which just wouldn’t open in Firefox 4 (Buffalo Wild Wings being one), but considering that there have been a lot of changes in Firefox 4, this doesn’t surprise me.

Everything isn’t all roses though. Java rendering (I enjoy playing Text Twist) and some Flash rendering is slow and painful. The Java being the worst of them all, as it slows to a crawl with a java game on Yahoo’s website. Once loaded, it works ok, but still a bunch of issues. Also, Firefox still uses a lot of memory, and doesn’t have the best memory management in the world. I have also heard reports of people who have had issues with it upon install, although the percentage seems to be small.

Is Firefox 4 an improvement? Definitely. Is it a game changer? No. Can it fend off Google Chrome? Maybe. Personally, I’m not going to Chrome unless I have to (Google has enough info on me from Android, Gmail etc, they don’t get any more if I can help it), and I don’t care of IE, Safari, or Opera. In the end, its really about what you are comfortable with and what works. On that, Firefox 4 is a solid, fast browser.

Google Chrome: Whats the big deal?

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So I finally decided to check out Chrome for myself. With all the hype and talk about it, I figured I better at least see what it is like.

The install took far longer than what I had expected for a “streamlined” installation. Once installed, it was never able to finish copying settings from my Firefox, and yes I let it sit there for a good 30 minutes as I walked away from my computer to take care of other things.

The little popup at the bottom as you go over links I found annoying, especially considering it woould sit there with a message even whn not over a link. One forum I go to which has some long threads, it was not able to process the threads properly. I found the layout to be simple, but coming from other browsers, a little confusing, especially as to where bookmarks and other items were hiding.

Personally, I don’t think Chrome is all that good. To me it just another thing to confuse people with. Firefox, Opera, IE, Safari, all have been around for a while, and while I have used them all except Opera, I know that people swear by each of them. Chrome just muddies the playing field with a not ready for prime time experience.

IE8: All the Hoopla, but does it work?

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Well then now. I have seen all the pushing and prodding about how “IE8 is now available! Download it now!” and it got me to thinking, should you really be downloading it now? Is it that important to move to it right this exact moment, while people are still writing reviews of it? What advantage do I get from it? What about headaches?

The problem I have is that I am seeing all the usual suspects come out of the woodwork and praise Microsoft again. Now IE8 works ok, but it does have some major flaws still in it. The most major of them is the best thing about it. IE8 adopted open standards. Yep the same standards that Firefox, Chrome, Opera, etc… have been using for years, not the Microsoft proprietary versions of theses standards, but the real deal. The problem is that there are a lot of web sites that were optimized for IE7 and earlier, and do not render properly in IE8. Heck, I heard from a friend who got IE8 and all of a sudden the Microsoft web site wasn’t showing properly.

Yes, IE8 is going to be a fantastic browser, but it needs the sites to catch up to it. This is what happens when you force a bastardized standard on people for so long, and then switch away from it. Growing pains. I would suggest waiting 6 months to a year to get IE8 and make sure you get the instructions on how to uninstall it, just in case.

Are you using IE8, and what are your thoughts on it? Leave a comment and let me know.