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Firefox 3.5 is out

234 points| ptn | 16 years ago |mozilla.com | reply

71 comments

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[+] f00|16 years ago|reply
Argh. I want to love Firefox 3.5. Really, I do. Modern web standards. Faster. Smaller memory footprint. Native Aqua widgets (effing _finally_).

The problem is, compared to Chrome and Safari, it's a dog.

I've been running the nightly (Shiretoko) for weeks now, and, like everyone else, I'm hopelessly addicted to various extensions during heavy browsing sessions (development, etc).. but when I want to pop up a browser, check something quickly, and move on with my life, Safari is the browser of choice. The initial launch speed and JS performance are orders of magnitude faster.

Gecko is a great layout engine, but my gut feeling is that XUL and friends are holding it back. Agree? Disagree?

[+] old-gregg|16 years ago|reply
It's even worse on Linux. FF performance on Ubuntu/Gnome was pretty bad. Starting up, scrolling and even window resizing made me feel like I was using a Pentium II. I want back to OSX+Safari. I only fire up FF when I need Firebug.

On the other hand, FF on Windows is blazing fast. So I doubt it's just XUL.

Edit: wow, they did Safari-like pixel-precise touchpad scrolling (OSX). Very nice.

[+] sp332|16 years ago|reply
I use the "Boss Key" extension (press a key and hides the window). This hides the current window, but not future windows. If I click the Firefox icon again, it comes up as fast as opening a new window.
[+] wvenable|16 years ago|reply
You close your web browser?

Edit: Was this downmodded by people who actually close their browser during the day? Those that don't should up-mod it.

[+] ashleyw|16 years ago|reply
Some rough figures:

  IE7: 0% (base, 1x)
  IE8: 24% faster (1.24x)
  FF3: 73% faster (1.73x)
  FF3.5: 183% faster (2.83x)
  Opera 10: 196% faster (2.96x)
  Chrome 2: 354% faster (4.54x)
  Safari 4: 427% faster (5.27x)
Personally I use Safari because I prefer WebKit (it being fast is nice too), but I'm very impressed with Firefox 3.5. It makes a very good development environment with all the extensions available for it! :)
[+] jeresig|16 years ago|reply
What are you using to arrive at those numbers? SunSpider, Dromaeo, some other benchmark?
[+] shizcakes|16 years ago|reply
Here's a short python script to optimize your firefox databases: http://pastebin.com/m155f9e6e

Close firefox, run it, be amazed. People have been claiming phenomenal speed boosts (mostly if your profile has aged a bit).

[+] timf|16 years ago|reply
find ~/.mozilla/ -iname '*.sqlite' -exec sqlite3 {} 'vacuum;' \;
[+] thorax|16 years ago|reply
I thought their new stats page was really cool:

http://downloadstats.mozilla.com/

[+] dpifke|16 years ago|reply
Anyone know what SQLStream (the software Mozilla is using for the stats page) costs? Their web site doesn't say and it looks very "enterprise-y" so I'm guessing lots.
[+] Xichekolas|16 years ago|reply
Bah, the release notes link gives me a 404... here is the cached version of the RC release notes from last week...

http://74.125.47.132/search?q=cache:P21aJ836YuQJ:www.mozilla...

EDIT: A much better list... https://developer.mozilla.org/en/Firefox_3.5_for_developers

EDIT#2: The What's New page that loads after installing also 404's...

[+] _giu|16 years ago|reply
the new firefox is pretty fast and the new tab design looks good. I think I'll pause google chrome for a few days.

update: if you have issues with old addons in firefox 3.5, John Resig suggests you to do the following: Open about:config, right-click new boolean 'extensions.checkCompatibility', set false, restart. (via http://twitter.com/jeresig/status/2404695608)

[+] jimm|16 years ago|reply
I read that somewhere else. When I went to look for that setting, I couldn't find it. I'm on Mac OS X.
[+] Davertron|16 years ago|reply
I'm still running Ubuntu 8.10, anyone get the release running there yet and want to share how they did it? Ideally I'd like to avoid trashing my old 3.0.11 install or profile...
[+] andyn|16 years ago|reply
I have to run various versions of Firefox for testing purposes. What I've done is to download the binary from their homepage and then run them with the appropriate command line:

    /path/to/firefox2 -no-remote -P ff2

    /path/to/firefox3 -no-remote -P ff3
-no-remote allows me to run separate profiles at the same time, -P specifies a profile name. So they don't run updates on, or ruin the other profile.

http://kb.mozillazine.org/Command_line_arguments

[+] steerpike|16 years ago|reply
Since installing 3.5RC and even upgrading to 3.5 my login state for sites hasn't been respected by FF. I have to log back into every site I visit every time I restart firefox - anyone have any suggestions as to what I can try to fix this? Cookies are on, passwords are stored and I'm not in privacy mode.
[+] anand003|16 years ago|reply
Private Browsing !!!

yeah.. but when I hit Ctrl-Shift-P It just overrides the current window ! And I have to hit that again to the public firefox browser. !

That just seems weird ! Atleast thats what the default does

[+] ttam|16 years ago|reply
what the freck happened to using cmd/ctrl + arrows to organize the tabs?? i usually have dozens of tabs opened and i used that feature to prioritize them! now they took it away and it's frecking annoying
[+] amix|16 years ago|reply
It feels a lot faster, at least on Mac OS X. The interface seems to be much more responsive as well. It's nice to see they have focused on performance :)
[+] CrLf|16 years ago|reply
I didn't notice any difference. Seems to take as much to start and is still noticeably slower than Safari.

Seems to use much less memory though.

[+] zandorg|16 years ago|reply
I tried out the <video> tag on the 3.5 About page, but it still uses Flash. I thought the whole point was to go native and avoid Flash?
[+] ramidarigaz|16 years ago|reply
Not sure what your issue is. I checked the Tour Firefox 3.5 video, and it worked like a charm, no flash req'd.
[+] halo|16 years ago|reply
It uses the video tag as default, but also provides a Flash fallback for when it's not available. This means it works in all the browsers.
[+] rbanffy|16 years ago|reply
What page are you talking about?
[+] compay|16 years ago|reply
The Acid3 test page is currently down. Coincidence?
[+] tsally|16 years ago|reply
Great, 4 of the top spots taken up by Firefox, PHP, Wireshark, and Virtualbox release notes. I know we've had this debate before, but I don't see why anyone wants 15% of their news to be release notes. If I care about these projects (and I do), I'll subscribe to a related RSS feed or mailing list. The only possible benefit I see is some useful discussion about new features, but honestly that's hardley enough benefit to compensate.

I've only seen the volume of release notes go up in the past month. I don't think we should reward the people that post them with karma. That will just encourage newer users to post more release notes for more and more tangentially related products. I wouldn't be suprised to see some scripts pop up that automatically post release notes of significant projects (as we've seen in the past with pg's essays). Heck, even if we restricted outselves to release notes of software used by YC companies, we'd still be overwhelmed.

I know it's an unpopular opinion, but honestly we can do better.

EDIT: For those claiming that they are in it for the dicussion, point me to any useful discussion so far in any of the 4 mentioned stories. As of this writing I count 2 or 3 useful comments, and maybe 1 useful discussion. So I don't buy it. Rephrasing the release notes certainly doesn't count.

Firefox: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=680853

Virtualbox: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=680692

PHP: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=680649

Wireshark: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=680286

[+] ghshephard|16 years ago|reply
How about we limit it to 1000 application/utility/developer notification to 1 Celebrity passing away notification?

And honestly - Firefox, Wireshark, PHP, Virtualbox are pretty important, do not get released frequently, and the _only_ place I heard about them being released (and I"m a major news junkie) was at HN.

Would you believe me if I told you that I seemed to have note of MJ's death on other web sites (and we still felt it necessary to post it here as well)

Techcrunch, who _specializes_ in discussing App Launches didn't mention these four (that I could see, they might be buried somewhere) primarily because they are more hacker related, and don't apply to their general audience.

Let's not get too hyper critical here on HN like some editors do on Wikipedia and decide that the only relevant content that should be posted is that which meets our own approval, and realize that there is a broad hacker community for whom the release of Firefox, Virtualbox, PHP and Wireshark should all be important events.

[+] w1ntermute|16 years ago|reply
Well, these tools are essential to many hackers, so the posts are definitely relevant to HN. IMO, it makes much more sense to view all such news in a central location (i.e., HN), rather than subscribing to individual projects' RSS feeds, where one would also be notified of developmental releases.
[+] tome|16 years ago|reply
I'm pleased to see this Firefox story, and the VirtualBox one, because I use both pieces of software and I'm interested in the opinions and discussions of other HN users, because such conversations are often intelligent and useful.
[+] IsaacSchlueter|16 years ago|reply
If you don't like it, flag it.

It IS an unpopular opinion, because whining is always unpopular.

I downvoted your comment. It is not well reasoned, or even properly contrary. It's whiny and weak. Please don't do this again.

I prefer to see these articles. Apparently 40 or so people agree with me as of writing this comment. I'm not "rewarding these users with karma", I'm expressing my desire to be alerted of new Firefox versions when I check HN.