Wednesday, March 09, 2011

Mozilla Firefox 4 RC for Windows, Mac and Linux


Although Firefox 4 RC was delayed from the originally planned release, it is now available for download.  As announced on the Mozilla Blog:
Mozilla Firefox 4 for Windows, Mac and Linux has exited the beta cycle and is now available as a release candidate in more than 70 languages. The millions of users testing Firefox 4 will be automatically updated to this version and will join our Mozilla QA team in validating the new features, enhanced performance and stability and HTML5 capabilities in Firefox 4. Testers are encouraged to check out the Web O’ Wonder in order to see the future of the Web with cutting edge demos that showcase the incredible online experiences developers can now create and users can experience. Developers can submit their own demos to the Mozilla Developer Network Demo Studio.

Before you rush to update, please note that Mozilla urges users to update graphics drivers for Firefox 4
"To prevent crashes, Mozilla created a list of graphics drivers that Firefox 4 reads; if a driver is on the "blocklist," the browser disables hardware acceleration."

{Snip}

"Jacob said that Windows users must have a "very recent driver" if their machine sports an Intel graphics card; version 257.21 or newer for Nvidia cards; and version 10.6 or newer for AMD's ATI-branded cards."

The complete blocklist is available in the Mozilla Wiki, linked below.

References:




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May the wind sing to you and the sun rise in your heart...

5 comments:

Cel said...

This does not make me a happy camper.

Corrine said...

Why is that, cel?

Cel said...

It appears the video driver issue 'may' be a part of the final release or maybe I am totally misunderstanding the issue not uncommon for me :)

I just hope this does not effect on board video systems but only those with cards.

99.% of all my friends have OBV.

If if this video driver issue does not effect OBV systems then I will be a happy camper :)

Corrine said...

Hi, cel.

Check out the FF 4 demo at https://demos.mozilla.org/en-US/.

You can check Intel drivers at Intel® Driver Update Utility.

Note: Windows 7 SP1 also has an issue with old Intel graphics drivers and will not be offered in Windows Update if Intel integrated graphics drivers Igdkmd32.sys or Igdkmd64.sys have not been updated. (See You do not have the option of downloading Windows 7 SP1 when you use Windows Update to check for updates)

The Windows Club published this list for driver sources for Windows 7: List of Windows 7 Drivers and has this comparable list for Windows Vista: Windows Vista Drivers.

AS I understand it, FF4 will be blocked if the driver needs updating.

Cel said...

Thanks for all the info. I did the utility and with the exception of the chipset it said to contact manufacturer on the rest.