FireFox 7.0 beta

[mikmik]

I decided to just update from ver. 6 because of the promised speed and memory usage improvements for 7.

It is noticeably faster, and the memory usage is way, way better! I don't seem to be getting any leaks after an hour of browsing (Win 7 Home Premium), and when I start it it only takes about a third the RAM of six, and when I stop it, all the used memory goes away! Version 6 was bad as I had to restart FF all the time because it would take up close to 2 gigs of RAM after a while, and would only release about 2 - 300 mb when exited.

Now, there's something that you sacrifice when using beta, namely, most your addons don't work FFS!

I'm not happy about Firebug at all, but adblock, and plus still work. I don't want to go back to six now, but if Firebug doesn't get updated soon.... Shite! Almost no developer tools work.
Oh well, I'll just use Chrome or Opera, LOL.

FF 7 is fast, and no longer a mem hog.

[deepsand]

FF4 was a step in the right direction re. RAM usage; but, FF5 took a big step backwards. Doesn't take long it to be scarfing up 1.6-1.8 GB.

Fortunately, I'm one of those who kept IE6 around; at 25-40 Meg/instance, it's quick, nimble, and slight of foot.

[Clint1]

Fortunately, I'm one of those who kept IE6 around; at 25-40 Meg/instance, it's quick, nimble, and slight of foot.

....and stable.

(Disregard email I sent, I had to keep refreshing a bunch of times and finally was logged in. Another WPW glitch).

[AciveLite2k]

Fortunately, I'm one of those who kept IE6 around; at 25-40 Meg/instance, it's quick, nimble, and slight of foot.

I agree and agree that's it's stable - but IE6 - designers worst nightmare if trying to make a concept support it and make support for IE 8/9 as well :/

[deepsand]

Clint, myself, and others use IE6 for what it does for us alone.

[Clint1]

I agree and agree that's it's stable - but IE6 - designers worst nightmare if trying to make a concept support it and make support for IE 8/9 as well :/
This is what I've been saying all along; designers don't know what they're doing if they can't make a webpage work in IE6-9. All of my websites work the same in IE6-9. So why can't the experts do it who do this for a living? What is a "concept"? What "concept"? Is there something "new, specific and incredibly wonderful" that "only works in IE8+"? Or can 'it' be done the way it's been done for many years with previous browser support? If the latter, there's no excuse for change. If the former, and the "internet can't get along without it", that's more understandable. But I seriously doubt that's the case: when I can't see a page in IE6 and then open it in FF or Chrome, it looks just like any other webpage with nothing special about it. I don't see--(hypothetical example only)--"amazing 3D graphics that look so real they jump out at you", or "smell-a-vision", or........, etc., etc. I see the same thing I've been seeing for many years with no difference in appearance. So why, alienate and shut out older browser users for something that has actually changed nothing??? It's as though there's a global conspiracy started simply out of spite (started somehow by M$, et al, ?) to discriminate conquer and subjugate against those that have found something that works and wants to stick with it.

[AciveLite2k]

This is what I've been saying all along; designers don't know what they're doing if they can't make a webpage work in IE6-9. All of my websites work the same in IE6-9. So why can't the experts do it who do this for a living? What is a "concept"? What "concept"? Is there something "new, specific and incredibly wonderful" that "only works in IE8+"? Or can 'it' be done the way it's been done for many years with previous browser support? If the latter, there's no excuse for change. If the former, and the "internet can't get along without it", that's more understandable. But I seriously doubt that's the case: when I can't see a page in IE6 and then open it in FF or Chrome, it looks just like any other webpage with nothing special about it. I don't see--(hypothetical example only)--"amazing 3D graphics that look so real they jump out at you", or "smell-a-vision", or........, etc., etc. I see the same thing I've been seeing for many years with no difference in appearance. So why, alienate and shut out older browser users for something that has actually changed nothing??? It's as though there's a global conspiracy started simply out of spite (started somehow by M$, et al, ?) to discriminate conquer and subjugate against those that have found something that works and wants to stick with it.

On that note I can take both sides. A web page such as this forum should work across the board. Sites generally created by an individual that creates from the ground up will keep HTML and CSS compliant with IE6, and develop with IE6 in mind.

Because sites you create, in no offense, are created by you, from the ground up - you are able to create something for IE6 in layers that will function with exceptional backwards compatibility.

The reality is, big companies that hire people specifically to "design" using photoshop and illustrator, come up with radical ideas, while not thinking about IE6 and it's restrictions. Then it's passed to an individual that turns the PSD file to CSS - who btw would use the most recent revision of CSS - then passed to an individual that would put everything together in a CMS solution...

Some examples of things IE6 can not support natively to my knowledge:

- Lack of PNG transparency support - GIFs may offer transparency but the quality is not crisp enough. PNG support is a widely adopted method of displaying graphics on a web page now.

- CSS Floats and Margin/padding issues - IE6 by default adds double the amount of margin and padding on "DIV" tags. Even though it's an easy fix using "display:inline" it is an additional piece of CSS someone has to keep up with.

- No Min-height CSS is supported in IE6 - Highly used in "WEB 2.0" sites, this CSS is highly used with DIVs and allow for easy skinning of a site via CSS to multiple platforms without the need of changing the "HTML" tree.

- CSS Hover effect - in IE6, the hover effect flickers and never provides a smooth transition when changing background images. There are JS scripts that fix this - but why bloat your code?

The list goes on and on. In marketing - presentation is everything and eye candy is king. Many companies don't want to pay for "Static" web pages - they want interactive and intriguing sites with lots of eye candy.

The site needs to match it's Brand DNA so that it develops a proper emotion to it's identity - you are just simply limited to things you can do with IE6...



In addition - Microsoft has set the End of life support for IE6 to July 13th 2014 - please correct me if i'm wrong. Simply put - when that happens are you as a designer/developer going to upgrade and learn new methods prior - implementing and future proofing your site, while creating sites that are rich in dynamic interaction - or are you going to create static pages will continue to work with IE6.



Besides - you said why change? Many wise people have stated - change is good. People don't like change, and I assume you my friend is one of em, however, as a community as a whole - change is good and it's how technology and concepts evolve.

[deepsand]

... or are you going to create static pages will continue to work with IE6.
Do you expect that the trillions of pages now extant will be revised to accommodate future browsers?


Besides - you said why change? Many wise people have stated - change is good.
Some effects of some changes are good; many are not.

The drivel that all too frequently here passes for knowledge is a perfect example of the latter.

[Clint1]

Besides - you said why change? Many wise people have stated - change is good. People don't like change, and I assume you my friend is one of em, however, as a community as a whole - change is good and it's how technology and concepts evolve.
I'm so sick of hearing that bullschitt speech I could scream:

You're away from home. You get a call from the Police Dept. telling you your family has just been murdered. "Change is good"?????

Your parents die. "Change is good"?????

You lose your business and are weeks away from being homeless living in a refrigerator box or "in a van down by the river". "Change is good"?????

I lost my Dad a few months ago and let me tell you; I'm going through HELL trying to deal with that. Every moment of my every day is CONSUMED with what I saw, reliving the event, I am overwhelmed by it to the point of "disability". "Change is good"?????

I could create an endless infinite list but I doubt that's necessary.

Anyone that says "Change is good" obviously has never suffered any kind of a loss.....and if they have and still feel that way, they obviously are insane. Now how is that "wise"?? If a person were wise, they would say:

"Change" is NOT good, "change" can be BOTH good AND bad.

So back to the browsers:


Because sites you create, in no offense, are created by you, from the ground up - you are able to create something for IE6 in layers that will function with exceptional backwards compatibility.
And others can't because.......?


The reality is, big companies that hire people specifically to "design" using photoshop and illustrator, come up with radical ideas,
....such as? (Maybe that's answered below*).



while not thinking about IE6 and it's restrictions.
Why not?



Then it's passed to an individual that turns the PSD file to CSS - who btw would use the most recent revision of CSS - then passed to an individual that would put everything together in a CMS solution...
Why use the most recent version of CSS when past versions work just fine?



Some examples of things IE6 can not support natively to my knowledge:
*Ok this is what I needed and wanted to hear:


- Lack of PNG transparency support - GIFs may offer transparency but the quality is not crisp enough. PNG support is a widely adopted method of displaying graphics on a web page now.
Ok that I knew. It of course supports png's just fine, just not transparent. I use png's more than gif's. But I've yet to see a transparent png used at any website. (Gif's are lower quality because of course they're only 256 colors or less).


*
- CSS Floats and Margin/padding issues - IE6 by default adds double the amount of margin and padding on "DIV" tags. Even though it's an easy fix using "display:inline" it is an additional piece of CSS someone has to keep up with.

- No Min-height CSS is supported in IE6 - Highly used in "WEB 2.0" sites, this CSS is highly used with DIVs and allow for easy skinning of a site via CSS to multiple platforms without the need of changing the "HTML" tree.
*Ok thanks for that info. This is what I've been looking to find out. But what's wrong with simply continuing to use "display:inline" if it keeps more people at a website and alienates no one? Why move to "Web 2.0" when "Web 1.0" was perfectly ok?



- CSS Hover effect - in IE6, the hover effect flickers and never provides a smooth transition when changing background images. There are JS scripts that fix this - but why bloat your code?
I've never had any CSS hover issue like that in IE6. And if you use JS then you don't put it on the page, you put it elsewhere then call to the file on the page.



The list goes on and on. In marketing - presentation is everything and eye candy is king. Many companies don't want to pay for "Static" web pages - they want interactive and intriguing sites with lots of eye candy.
Personally I hate "eye candy" and I cannot be alone. It adds nothing to a webpage but annoyances, slowing down everything, useless "bells 'n whistles", etc. I prefer speed functionality and content over "eye candy".

Here's an example of countless others of what I'm talking about (http://multivu.prnewswire.com/player/43772-cox-announces-plus-package/). (Deepsand, check that out in IE6). Like many many sites, you are blocked, forbidden to view anything on the frickin' page in IE6 due to that frickin' banner overlay. It's a 'conspiracy' to block out certain people and discriminate against them. But what the really infuriating thing is about that, is, if you Refresh and click "Stop" at just the right time, the page works fine and you can see the videos!! YouTube pulled the same crap some time back and fell under so much fire they removed their 'forbidden' 'blocked hidden cloaked' banner overlay from users of older browsers once again allowing them access as before! And like that example at the site above, there were ways around it (like the refresh and stop trick) where you could still view all the videos! Proof that it's an action purely out of spite! It's as though older browser users "have the plague" and are "not welcomed anywhere on the planet".



In addition - Microsoft has set the End of life support for IE6 to July 13th 2014
That's irrelevant. M$ doesn't "support" anything they make anyway, you're always on your own. And if we're talking about getting their bug-riddled computer-halting patches and updates, well, one is better off without that (millions of threads across the world on those problems).



......or are you going to create static pages will continue to work with IE6.
"Static"?? What's so static about: Videos, Flash, SWF, animations, animated JS, DHTML, hover mouse-over effects and via CSS and JS, etc., etc,. etc.?? You make it sound like it supports nothing!

I suggest if browser-bashing needs to continue then a (yet another) new thread should be started since this one is supposed to be about FF7. (Sorry "mik").

[deepsand]

Here's an example of countless others of what I'm talking about (http://multivu.prnewswire.com/player/43772-cox-announces-plus-package/). (Deepsand, check that out in IE6). Like many many sites, you are blocked, forbidden to view anything on the frickin' page in IE6 due to that frickin' banner overlay. It's a 'conspiracy' to block out certain people and discriminate against them. But what the really infuriating thing is about that, is, if you Refresh and click "Stop" at just the right time, the page works fine and you can see the videos!! YouTube pulled the same crap some time back and fell under so much fire they removed their 'forbidden' 'blocked hidden cloaked' banner overlay from users of older browsers once again allowing them access as before! And like that example at the site above, there were ways around it (like the refresh and stop trick) where you could still view all the videos! Proof that it's an action purely out of spite! It's as though older browser users "have the plague" and are "not welcomed anywhere on the planet".
I run into the same thing here and there; pisses me off royally.

PhysOrg did that for a while, and then gave up. Bank of America for a while tried simply refusing to show any content or than a similar message; guess that didn't work out very well for them, as they quickly stopped doing that.

I am so very, very tired of the "new is good/hip/cool/now/happening/etc." BS. Most of it is no more than a ploy to dissuade people from maximizing their use of things, to get them to throw out what they have, even though it still works, and replace it with what the providers want them to buy/use.