Firefox 4 - fixing a few niggles

Firefox 4 was released a couple of weeks ago, and I've been using it as my primary browser since then. On the whole I have been impressed - it is fast, and the layout has been improved. It also contains a bunch of new features which I will probably never use but commend, such as the "Firefox button" and the (slightly odd) "tab groups" functionality.

However, at the same time there have been some somewhat arbitrary decisions made by the developers, about which I am not so keen. These include turning off the "save and quit" option when closing the browser with multiple tabs open, setting WebGL off by default, and removing the RSS feed icon from the address bar.

Save and quit

I have fallen into the habit of closing Firefox with multiple tabs open, as reminders of things I need to do / look at when I return. Unfortunately, in FF4 the decision was made to disable the ability to do this by default. If like me you want the "save and quit" option when you close the browser, you need to tinker with the hidden configuration settings.

To do this, open a new tab and enter "about:config" in the address bar. Click the "I'll be careful" button and filter for "browser.showQuitWarning". Set this to true. Now you will regain the "save and quit" button when you close multiple tabs.

I should say I suspect the so-called "tab groups" are intended to replace this functionality, but personally I prefer to see them all lined up when I open the browser to remind me to do things!

RSS feed button

For pages with RSS feeds (such as this blog), Firefox's automatic feed detection and (in the past) display of the little orange feed icon in the address bar of the page is a god-send. Sadly, Mozilla have taken the unfortunate decision to remove the button from the address bar, and I can find no way to put it back (save using third-party add-ons).

You can still subscribe to feeds, but now you need to go into the Bookmarks menu (or use the bookmark button if you are using the Firefox button in place of menus) and "subscribe to this page".

On one level this isn't a big deal. The problem is that users now need to go into a menu to check whether a feed is present, rather than having an instant visual indication. Essentially, the onus is now on websites to show that they have a feed, rather than relying on the browser.

WebGL

Of all the niggles I have with FF4, the fact that WebGL is turned off by default is in many ways the most irritating. I realise this is getting rather geeky, but when you make a big song-and-dance about a new feature, you shouldn't then hide it away and make it inaccessible to most users.

In a nutshell, WebGL is a standard for putting 3D into web pages. In my view this has huge potential for games and education. However, if people can't use it they won't adopt it.

Now I admit there is something slightly odd going on here. To enable WebGL you need to go into about:config (see above) and filter for "webgl". You then see a number of options, one of which is "webgl.disabled" which defaults to false as you would expect. However, on all the machines I have tried with WebGL, this hasn't been sufficient to get it working. Additionally I've needed to set "webgl.force-enabled" to true.