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Firefox 3 Beta 5 Released
Posted by
Zonk
on Wed Apr 02, 2008 02:02 PM
from the another-toy-for-the-weekend dept.
from the another-toy-for-the-weekend dept.
bunratty writes "Firefox 3 Beta 5 was released today. This last beta release sports performance-boosting improved connection parallelism. Not only has 'the memory leak' been fixed: Firefox now uses less memory than other browsers. This is not only according to Mozilla developers, but CyberNet and The Browser World as well. As for the Acid3 test, Firefox 3 Beta 5 scores only 71/100 compared to 75/100 for Safari 3.1 and 79/100 for the latest Opera 9.5 snapshot. The final release of Firefox 3 is expected in June."
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FIRST POST!111 (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:FIRST POST!111 (Score:5, Funny)
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Re:FIRST POST!111 (Score:4, Informative)
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Almost there (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Almost there (Score:4, Informative)
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Acid 3 Test (Score:5, Insightful)
Actually... (Score:5, Informative)
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Re:Actually... (Score:5, Informative)
Yes, Firefox does include a few Gecko fixes that increase the Acid3 score, but not because Firefox 3 is chasing the test. We're focused on getting in the right set of changes between now and ship and that's not going to be defined by Acid3.
- A
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Re:Acid 3 Test (Score:5, Informative)
Acid 3, just like acid 2, has been released when the firefox development cycle is focusing on stabilizing...other browsers have focused on passing acid3 like it was the most important thing to do and have done ugly things just to be the first, take for example this: https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=410460#c44 [mozilla.org]
And the fact that at least WebKit has introduced a special case for the Acid3
font:
m_allowFontSmoothing = (nameStr != "Ahem");
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Re:Acid 3 Test (Score:5, Informative)
That's not the whole story. The Acid3 test assumes specific font-smoothing behaviour (that it doesn't increase the dimensions of the text). This is not always true on OS X and isn't required by any specification. The workaround in Webkit was to guarantee the font-smoothing behaviour that the Acid3 test expected. That font is not a normal font, it's designed specifically for testcases, so both the "bug" and the workaround would not affect normal situations. And the Acid3 test has since been changed to avoid this problem [hixie.ch].
Please include this information when mentioning this "ugly thing", because without the pertinent facts, people assume a number of things that simply aren't true.
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Re:Acid 3 Test (Score:5, Informative)
I think you're confused. The Acid 3 test is not a test for Web standards. It's a test for a particular (and rather small) subset of Web standards. It's not even a representative set of Web standards that would necessarily move the Web forward in meaningful ways if there were compatible implementations across the various browsers.
At Mozilla, we're definitely focused on fixing bugs in our various Web standards feature implementations as well as adding new Web standards capabilities, but we're not going to focus on any one test, especially a test that's designed as much to make browser vendors jump through hoops as much to advance the standards state of the Web.
- A
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Re:Acid 3 Test (Score:5, Informative)
Well, I'd rather Mozilla contributors worked on issues that were real than issues that were "symbolic".
Mozilla has for 10 years, and continues today, to demonstrate a serious commitment to Web standards. For the better part of the last decade, Mozilla has been the only serious standards advocating competitor to Microsoft and Firefox over the last four years has almost single-handedly revived the standards-based Web.
So, if you think that a failure to drop everything else we're working on (to improve the Open standards-based Web) and start tap dancing for Ian Hickson and his Acid3 test erases our credibility on Web standards, then go ahead thinking that and don't expect me to waste further time trying to change your mind.
- A
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Re:Acid 3 Test (Score:4, Interesting)
Of course it's not a native cocoa app! It's a XUL app, where XUL is Mozilla's own cross-platform widget toolkit. And it has to be a XUL app, because extensions have to be able to modify the UI and extensions are written in XUL. And extensions have to be written in XUL, because they have to be cross-platform. And Firefox has to support extensions, because otherwise it wouldn't be Firefox anymore.
Bottom line: if you want a Gecko browser that's a native cocoa app, use Camino. If you want a browser that supports extensions, use Firefox. You will never, ever be able to have a single app that does both, because XUL and cocoa are different, incompatible technologies.
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Waiting... (Score:5, Funny)
What I care about (Score:3, Insightful)
Also, every time I uninstall firefox 3, I could no longer click links in outlook unless I reset default browser to IE and switch back. This is very irritating.
CPU spike bug? (Score:5, Interesting)
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Got Buttons? (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Got Buttons? (Score:5, Informative)
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Beta/nightly vs. regular stable release (Score:5, Insightful)
If we're comparing a Firefox beta then we may as well look at a newer version of Safari, too. The latest nightly builds of WebKit get 100/100 on Acid3. http://webkit.org/blog/173/ [webkit.org]
Re:Beta/nightly vs. regular stable release (Score:5, Informative)
>only 71/100 compared to 75/100 for Safari 3.1
>>If we're comparing a Firefox beta then we may
>>as well look at a newer version of Safari, too.
>>The latest nightly builds of WebKit get 100/100
>>on Acid3. http://webkit.org/blog/173/ [webkit.org]
Actually, that's not quite fair. Firefox 3 beta 5 is the final beta and it's basically done. It will be a shipping browser at the same time as Safari 3.1. Comparing shipping browsers with nearly simultaneous releases (only a few months apart) is an eminently reasonable thing to do.
- A
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3 Beta 5 vs. 2.0.0.13? (Score:3, Interesting)
Are the critical extensions available? For me, that's Adblock, NoScript, and Flashblock.
Re:3 Beta 5 vs. 2.0.0.13? (Score:5, Informative)
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How the mighty have fallen. (Score:4, Insightful)
Oh yeah, those were numbers for non-production browsers, in-the-lab builds.
Connection parallelism (Score:5, Interesting)
I'm sure somebody is likely to bring it up, so it may as well be me with some additional relevant facts. The HTTP 1.1 specification, RFC 2616 [ietf.org], says [ietf.org] that:
This "improved connection parallelism" is simply changing Firefox from using the RFC-suggested 2 persistent connections, to 6. Now, SHOULDs and SHOULD NOTs are not set in stone, but they do require careful thought before ignoring.
The Bugzilla entry [mozilla.org] debating this has a comment [mozilla.org] that points out that other browsers have also started to ignore this part of the specification:
Re:Connection parallelism (Score:5, Interesting)
I agree that specification recommendations should not be ignored without careful consideration. However, I think the jump from 2 to 6 makes a lot of sense after almost 10 years of adhering to the specification and I don't think that it was done without careful consideration. Web servers and bandwidth have both strongly moved forward, and that specific suggestion in the RFC was just that. A suggestion. In the context of 1999.
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Firefox 3.0 and the spring linux releases (Score:4, Interesting)
side by side install with FF2 (Score:4, Informative)
Firefox Portable [portableapps.com]
Yay!
Re:Awesomebar? (Score:5, Interesting)
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Re:Awesomebar? (Score:5, Funny)
Besides anything called Awesombar makes me shiver.
How to Enter Into Firefox.
Click on the RadicalButton view threw the CoolMenu and once the narleyhighlight is set click it and firefox will load and now you can use the Awesombar to browse the web.
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Re:Awesomebar? (Score:4, Funny)
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Re:Awesomebar? (Score:5, Funny)
Thank you
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Re:Awesomebar? (Score:5, Informative)
I only use the bookmarks on the bookmark menu. I never open a sidebar or go into the separate bookmarks panel except to organize the bookmarks - a rarity indeed.
Same thing with history. It takes too long. I could have googled for it faster. The interface isn't slow, per se. I've never worked that way, and don't feel like starting anytime soon.
Now if I jump back to wikipedia, I don't have to type "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ha..."
Not perfect. Smart. People like using the Windows CMD+R command bar and launch bars for the exact same reason.
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Re:Awesomebar? (Score:5, Interesting)
Mind you I usually have 20 - 40 tabs open in firefox all the time and I just resume my session on startup. It's just a different way of browsing and one that I prefer.
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Re:Awesomebar? (Score:5, Informative)
Lots of the changes in Firefox 3 with regard to bookmarking are in acknowledgment that the current way of bookmarking isn't as efficient as it should be so users DO go and do what you do, just google for their sites.
The star is a one-click bookmark. You can file it later if you want, or just use the "smart" bookmark features.
The awesomebar is basically a search engine for your bookmarks and history. I really don't see why people hate it. If you want to type in a URL without your pr0n sites showing up, clear your history! But seriously... you enter in a key word or key words, and all sites which have some connection with it pop up, with them intelligently ranked based on how often you visit those sites. Even if you just type in URLs you'll find as soon as you type in the "h" of "http" your most frequently typed urls you started typing with "http" in the past will appear! I used to manually type in the address to planet.mozilla.org to go there. Now I just tap h and it's right there by the top for me. The AwesomeBar is designed to make it easier to find your bookmarks and history items.
And if you don't like it... that's why we have extensions [mozilla.org].
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Re:Awesomebar? (Score:5, Interesting)
We like it to autocomplete the url that we're typing so disabling it completely is a step backwards but the new behaviour seems dumb.
Example: I've typed in web, am I more likely to be looking for "xkcd - A *web*comic of
I admit, web is a very generic word so this is quite an extreme example but I find that when typing in urls into the address bar, the awesome bar is a lot worse at bringing up the rest of the address you're typing.
Side note: I really like the idea of an integrated search for bookmarks and history, it is more useful than I would have thought but it already exists in the history panel (which I have appear in my sidebar). If they wanted to draw attention to it, would it have killed them to integrate it into the search box and make the search box itself more of a central feature? I mean, when I want to search, I use the search bar or hit my google bookmark on the toolbar, I don't type what I'm looking for in the address bar.
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Re:Awesomebar? (Score:5, Interesting)
I can't stand the name "awesomebar," but IMO it does have better sorting and filtering logic than the history sidebar, and its performance is a bit more nimble, so it's starting to win me over.
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Re:Awesomebar? (Score:4, Informative)
The oldbar addon gets you back to a clean list: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/6227 [mozilla.org]
I'm able to enjoy the feature now, and I find it useful. This mode should be configurable, as well as reverting to a "dumb" URL text search if that suits your habits. Otherwise, this annoyance has the potential to drive away users, because every time you type a URL the awesomebar will assault you.
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Re:It actually slows down wikipedia for me (Score:4, Informative)
Click "Add a keyword for this search"
Put something in the Name box
In Keyword, put something like "wp"
Click Add
Now, when you type "wp foobar" in the address bar, it runs a Wikipedia search for foobar
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Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Seriously, on OSX, Webkit nightly (Safari) is so much better than FF3B5 (Firefox). Faster, better render, better integration.
Only thing keeping me from Webkit completely is 1) Extensions (Adblock+, Google Gears, Firebug!) and 2) Awesomebar
It's that nice.
All you haters can use a theme that kicks it.
Re:Awesomebar? (Score:5, Insightful)
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Re:Awesomebar? (Score:5, Insightful)
URLs are the key to http IMO - they're the ones to keep in memory as they're unique, unlike page titles and bookmarks. When I type "sla" in the address bar, I want slashdot.org, not some random blog post with the term 'slashdot' in the title I happened to pass by at some point.
At the end, what pisses me off the most about this whole deal is not being able to revert to the old behavior. That kind of forced nurturing is what I'd expect from Microsoft, not Mozilla.
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Re:Awesomebar? (Score:5, Informative)
I have *never* chosen Ebay in that instance, and yet it persists as the top choice in the list. Precisely the sort of behaviour that we are talking about.
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Re:Awesomebar? (Score:5, Informative)
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Re:Awesomebar? (Score:5, Insightful)
However, I have been using and testing Firefox 3 Betas pretty significantly. Personally, I'm very much enjoying the Awesomebar. I tend not to use bookmarks all that often - it's nicer to just start typing and, based on how I browse, the site I want to go to is usually at the very top of the list. The Awesomebar has also been helpful when I haven't been able to quite remember the site I want to go to. I start typing, and the site is usually listed somewhere near the top.
Either way, it would be cool if there was an option to shut off the Awesomebar (for those people who don't like it) - but a new way to do something does not necessarily make it hideous.
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Re:Warning: This breaks adblock! (Score:5, Informative)
Just open up about:config and add "extensions.checkCompatibility" as a Boolean set to false.
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Re:Who cares about Safari? (Score:5, Insightful)
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Re:So obsessed with memory? (Score:5, Informative)
Since people started doing more "wep apps" (and memory usage skyrocketed as a result) and since mobile devices started becoming a real browsing platform. RAM on those is not all that plentiful, so far.
Note that the work to reduce memory usage in Firefox has thus far led to performance improvement, most likely due to better cache coherency. There _have_ been some optimizations to reduce memory usage at the cost of more CPU usage (largely to do with how long decoded 4-bytes-per-pixel representations of images are kept in memory), but most of the memory usage improvements have been due to using a better allocator and fixing leaks. There is no "must have the smallest memory usage around" goal; as you note other considerations are at least as important.
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Re:So obsessed with memory? (Score:5, Informative)
I'm not sure if you recall reading the comments to any other story about Firefox on Slashdot or Digg or Ars or virtually anywhere else in the past two years, but about 90% of those comments discussed memory usage. The Firefox team is doing a good job responding to its user base. They have not, to my knowledge, had to sacrifice speed or additional features to achieve lower memory usage.
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Re:Acid scores (Score:4, Interesting)
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