[Osiris]

Firefox 3 Beta 4 is currently distributed [thanks Ryan] to all Mozilla mirror websites and it is only a matter of time when the announcement will be made official on the Mozilla homepage. Early adopters can already download this version from a handful of selected official mirror websites. more cautious users can wait until the release is available on the official homepage as well.
The release notes have not been updated yet but I can at least mention some of the more prominent changes. Firefox 3 Beta 4 introduces adaptive learning in the location bar which means that Firefox will learn from what you type and provide better suggestions over time. Another new feature is the multi word search.
There have been lots of bug fixes and performance increases under the hood and Firefox 3 Beta 4 seems to run just a little bit faster than the previous beta version. A fifth beta has been announced just recently which will most likely come out at the end of March.

Firefox 3 Beta 4 is out

[Mak213]

Is this the real thing and not the RC build like posted before?

This morning, BetaNews FileForum received word that Beta 4 of Mozilla Firefox was posted for testers to download...and for a short time, that's how it genuinely appeared.

But as one of our readers soon found out -- and apparently Mozilla as well -- what went up in the properly named releases/3.0b4 directory was not the final public Beta 4 at all, but rather a release candidate for Beta 4 (as opposed to a release candidate for the final product). Essentially, it's the latest build for what Mozilla hopes to be able to distribute as Firefox 3.0 Beta 4.


A check of Firefox's status tracking page this afternoon clearly showed the last release candidate had officially passed all quality control checks. But once the file that had been posted to the Beta 4 directory (later removed) is installed, it clearly identified itself as a release candidate not for public use.

Today was supposed to be the official Firefox 3 Beta 4 Test Day. It was originally scheduled to end at 5:00 pm PST this afternoon (8:00 pm EST), though according to an apparent update Mozilla's schedule, the Test Day festivities have been extended until 6:00 am EST (3:00 am PST). An amendment to the Test Day page currently reads, "(We will use the Release Candidate for testing)!"

The extended time may be on account of the posting confusion, but it might also conceivably give Mozilla a few more hours in which to post its final Beta 4, perhaps after a rebuild.

All that having been said, the RC of Beta 4 does still look promising, with more slight modifications to the standard appearance of the common buttons. There are no obvious new features added since Beta 3, so this latest release apparently concentrates on improving quality and reliability.

[mikee]

I downloaded it through the forefox update so I would assume its the real thing

This beta is faster than beta 3 and has the vista theme finally. One thing that ticks me off is that some addons that were compatible with beta 3 broke compatibility in beta 4.

[Osiris]

Don’t jump to conclusions just yet. Some blogs (Tech Today started it I guess) are reporting that a first pre release alpha of Firefox 4 has been added to the official Mozilla ftp website and I would like to use this article to clarify a few points made. Tech Today claims that this is actually an official Firefox 4 alpha release while it is actually a pre-alpha build, also known as a trunk build.
There is no decision on the codename for Firefox 4 yet, it is definitely not Minefield which refers to the 1.9 trunk that Firefox 3 is being developed on. Remember that the codename for Firefox 3 is Gran Paradiso. Neither the trunk for Firefox 4 nor the browser itself have been codenamed yet.
Which leads to the conclusion that the Tech Today blog excited about the discovery published inaccurate news which is probably leading to some confusion in the community.

Firefox 4 Alpha

[jonny_uk]

i downloaded it from filehippo earlier today, seems faster than any other versions ive had, plus i like the default theme and the fact you dont need any extensions to get a dedicated bookmarks button.

[Mak213]

I still want to know if Nightly Tester Tools work. If so i am all over it. If not i have to stay.

[mikee]

ya the new vista theme is pretty sweet, too bad they couldn't make the whole upper part glass for vista users

[Trotter]

Originally Posted by Mak Attack

I still want to know if Nightly Tester Tools work. If so i am all over it. If not i have to stay.

Ditto.

[Mak213]

Originally Posted by Trotter

Ditto.

Trotter good news. From what i have heard they updated NTT to work with the new betas. So i am gonna download this right now, install it and then post back with results for you. Since it is less critical for me to have Firefox as it is for you.

Trotter. With the NTT you should be able to get all your Extensions working. The only Extension that has caused me any grief was PicLens which i uninstalled anyways. So enjoy.