Mozilla shares tentative vision for Firefox 4
Our first glimpse of Firefox 4 was limited to a few tasteful mockups; this time, Mozilla's main man Mike Beltzner has revealed the company's plans for its next generation web browser in its entirety. While exact features and dates are sketchy, his presentation reveals Mozilla would like to hold the Firefox 4 beta in June, before unleashing a CSS3, partially HTML5 compliant web browser with multitouch support, background updates, geolocation, Firefox Sync (aka Mozilla Weave) and a greatly streamlined UI this holiday season. The presentation has "PLANS MIGHT CHANGE" written all over it in large red letters, so trust us when we say none of this is for sure, but we like the direction Firefox is going and we'll be happy to see more. Video presentation at our source link, full slideshow after the break.























This looks sexy ! :)
@supermalloch
So basically they copied IE8 by having the menu bar off by default. cool. Theyre only 2 years late.
@supermalloch
More like this looks EXACTLY like Opera right down to the tabs with transparency and replacement of the file menus with the company logo.
@Luxury Guy
Yup, very similar!
@Luxury Guy True, even the menu at the top-left.
@Luxury Guy
Actually Opera copied Mozilla. They (Mozilla) have been leaking future UI features for months. There's even a blog called "behind the tool shed" (I think) that has a lot of the new UI developments from people involved with their design team.
Come on guys, how different can web browser UIs look? They all look the same to me.
What matters is how they perform... again, that's all the same to me. The only noticeable differences are start-up times, and Firefox is sloooow (from cold-start).
@detusueno there's an option called "show menu bar" you can check off since opera 8. Uncheck that and you get the screenshot above (albeit without the transparency on windows xp, the days when opera 8 came about).
@supermalloch not trying to take anything away from it but it looks a lot like opera 5
@supermalloch I can't see this presentation on my iPad, just a blue lego block. Help! How do I watch this?
@supermalloch
NO! I like my tabs BELOW the address bar.
Transparent & translucent UIs are idiotic. Period. They provide no benefit and significant detriment.
@oproski
I know what a bad design... Tabs would have to be the most used feature, and now you have to look and scroll further to get to them. This is their worst idea since 'ordering' new tabs by default instead of placing them at the end.
But then that seems to be the way development (especially in windows) is going lately, form over function, where every new version of anything requires more 'clicks' to achieve the same thing as the version before.
@Information Central Disable AERO and then have a cup of STFU. Jeeezuss....
@Luxury Guy
Uhh Microsoft Office has had this feature built in for a while. I don't think it was Opera's idea.
@blland I believe that "feature" has been in every web browser in existence. Including IE1 and Netscape Navigator 1. The innovation here isn't the ability to remove toolbars as a personal preference. It's the hiding of the menu bar as a deliberate default design.
IE7 did this first in 06, then Chrome in 08, then Opera 10 in 09. Firefox blogged about this design a while back, but have yet to implement it.
@Luxury Guy
Looks exactly like my google chrome
@Jive Turkey correction: Apparently you can't get rid of the menu bar in FF. Maybe I was wrong about it being in every browser? Or any browser before IE7 did it?
@Accidental not sure if you're trolling or just a n00b. Either way, Ipad fail.
@psc2 I don't know what you've done to your browser, but mine doesn't move the tabs when I scroll the page. I didn't think any browser would do that.
@Luxury Guy
Looks a lot like Chrome too!
@Information Central
theyre not idiotic, they look cool and arent some ugly grey color or blue color. I guarantee you use chrome and think whatever chrome is is whats the epitome. Youre a pathetic google fanboy
@supermalloch
I agree it looks pretty good, but with all these see through windows it can sometimes get difficult to hide my porn when someone walks in. I hope they include a non-aero version.
@Accidental rofl well that's what happens when you buy the "cool" shiny new thing that's everyone talking about yet they know nothing about. So the reason why you can't watch this or 98% of the web is, well, your ipad and other Apple products will never be able to use Flash:)
@supermalloch Been waiting for this since last year. If only FF will make their browser a bit more fast, then it'll certainly regain its title as the most popular browser on earth. First view. http://j.mp/firefox-4-0-coming-very-soon
I'm pretty sure that screenshot is old because the new (actually not so new anymore) design has the refresh button combined with the go button. The design has been out for many months already, people... I think only the presentation is new.
ROUND back button FAIL
tacky and doesnt respect the UI previews for 4.0 previewed during 3.5
anyway, i dont care. Chrome FTW
@supermalloch : Only a bunch of geeks like us would get excited about an update to a web browser.... :)
I would say, 'Go Firefox', but it would be blasphemy because I'm using Chrome.
@CreepinJesus Firefox is SUPER SLOW :( I really do want to like it, but I find myself hardly using it since I started to use Chrome...
@detusueno Well seeing as how Opera invented multiple site browsing (in 1994) and put tabs on the top (in 2000) to begin with most modern browsers are all copying Opera. I'm pretty sure Opera doesn't need to knockoff anybody's UI ideas, and just because there were Firefox mockups doesn't mean that Opera stole anybody's ideas. I mean everything from the way browsers zoom to the pop-up blocker was pioneered by Opera you know.
About Time.
Will this finally be the version where they get rid of the huge memory leaks and lag?
@DoctarPeppar
I want them to fix that damn issue with extensions not working after upgrading firefox. I got the BS excuse from them once that developers aren't using the right APIs.
Looks like chrome to me
@Console fanboy
Is that a bad thing?
@Sean Connery No not really I like chromes layout
@Console fanboy
how does it look like chrome? chrome is a blue blob with fisher price designed buttons. this is an aero browser with no menu bar, exactly like IE8
@Console fanboy Correction: looks like a bastardized, ugly version of Chrome.
@Natal It looks like chrome because the tabs are on top of the address bar. Nothing wrong with copying a better design in my opinion.
@Console fanboy
Everything looks like chrome now.
@MajorTom15
Opera has had tabs on top of the address bar since forever. It's the only thing that makes sense, IMO.
And for those that complain about having to navigate further to reach them: mouse gestures (scrolling through tabs with the wheel) and keyboard shortcuts. Clicking on tabs to switch between them or close them is a huge waste of time.
@Endadget
Firefox 4 has the option of top or bottom tabs.
Firefox therefore has more option for UI customization
@Console fanboy Too bad it won't run as fast as Chrome...watching Firefox start up on a netbook is just plain painful. Opera and Chrome boot right up on any hardware while Firefox makes IE look fast.
Even worse? Trying to start Firefox off a network installation...the pain...
Looks a lot like Chrome, interface-wise.
I'm sticking with Opera.
@mentalchaos
Same...Opera was awesome until 10.50 and then it started having a ton of issues, but ever since 10.53 came out I've had no trouble at all.
Opera is so much faster than firefox and doesn't leak memory like a sieve.
@mentalchaos
Probably sticking with Firefox 3.6.3, because I'm pretty sick of browsers hiding things to make them "cleaner".
Firefox thing in top-right looks like Opera
@veryshortstop13
*top-left
Reminds me of chrome.