Firefox 3 Hits Release Candidate 2 395
Barence noted that Firefox has announced release candidate 2 of their highly popular web browser. You can read the release notes while you download. And since my copy just finished downloading, I guess I'll go install it. I hope I don't have any
Actual Release Notes (Score:5, Informative)
Crash (Score:1, Informative)
I've been using the pre alpha nightlies, then the alpha then betas and finally tried RC1
This crashed as soon as it started up
RC2 shows a web page but crashes as soon as I click on anything...
I'm using XP which is up to date with all patches. I know most tricks on how to get FF working... but I am stumpted as to why both RCs are so fucked on my computer. I've had to revert back to FF2 and I miss the URL bar and tagging :-(
Re:Old Look? (Score:5, Informative)
-Register and log in to Firefox Addons
-Attempt to override the version check and install the theme
-Go to your %appdata% just after it fails and look for the temp XPI that it downloaded
-Copy it to the desktop and extract it with winrar
-Change the RDF file's <maxversion> to * or 3.0RC2 or something
-Zip the files back up, normal compression, rename to xpi
-Drag the file off the desktop into your firefox window to install!
Re:Crash (Score:5, Informative)
Works for me. (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Momory Issues? (Score:5, Informative)
http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20080317-firefox-3-goes-on-a-diet-eats-less-memory-than-ie-and-opera.html [arstechnica.com]
http://www.thebrowserworld.com/2008/03/29/firefox-30-beta-4-vs-opera-950-beta-vs-safari-31-beta-multiple-sites-opening-test/ [thebrowserworld.com]
http://cybernetnews.com/2008/03/26/cybernotes-browser-performance-comparisons/ [cybernetnews.com]
Re:Until they bother fixing critical bugs... (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Old Look? (Score:3, Informative)
http://lifehacker.com/355973/make-your-extensions-work-with-the-firefox-3-beta [lifehacker.com]
I've done this and nothing complains about compatibility any more. Of course, there's a huge downside: nothing guarantees compatibility any more, either!
So far, I've found that old themes do not work very well (I miss Pinball!) In my case, they caused the scrollbar on the right side to disappear. On the positive side, all of my extensions seem to work fine, and I run a lot of them. (13 of my extensions claim to not be Firefox 3.0 compatible, but still work.)
Re:Old Look? (Score:4, Informative)
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/6543 [mozilla.org]
Re:Actual Release Notes (Score:3, Informative)
Argh. DISREGARD, that's the same bloody page that's in the article.
Well, it's a release candidate anyway so there's not going to be any new features. It'll be critical bugfixes only, which is probably why there's no dedicated release notes, they'll arrive for the final version. I'm guessing you could search Bugzilla to find recent fixes of critical or blocker bugs, but it's running pretty slowly now and I wouldn't know how to make such a search, so I'm leaving now.
Re:Firefox is starting to give me the shits (Score:5, Informative)
What's your solution here? Freeze the extension API forever? It's up to the extension developers, not Mozilla, to make sure they're compatible and mark them so. If you know what you're doing you can bypass this check, but at your own peril.
See, there's this great new search engine called Google.com, and if you go there and type "Firefox 3 disable awesomebar", the very first link describes exactly how to do that. But somehow I get the feeling you'd rather complain about it than actually take it upon yourself to do something about it.
OK, now it's painfully obvious you're either a troll or haven't been paying attention at all. Every Firefox 3 article I've read since the betas started coming out gushed over how memory management was so much better than in 2, how faster it is, etc. The Mozilla devs publicly discussed in many locations all the work they went through to find and plug memory leaks, prevent circular references in Javascript and extensions from tying up memory, etc.
Again I'm pretty sure you'd rather just complain than actually read about it but your friend Google will help you find plenty of information on this.
I can't even parse this one. You leave the tab-close confirmation on, but don't want it to confirm when you close tabs? Whatever your issue here is, I'm sure there's a setting or extension for it if you'd take 2 minutes to research.
Right-click, Save Link As...
What exactly is it about IE you would like Firefox to emulate?
And how does drivel like this get modded "Insightful"?!
Re:Actual Release Notes (Score:5, Informative)
Re:But can it... (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Acid3 (Score:5, Informative)
Correct, it has been in feature freeze for quite a while and no more changes will be made to the rendering engine.
Re:Actual Release Notes (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Read this (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Old Look? (Score:3, Informative)
Two fingers on the touchpad and a click simulates a right click, which was annoying at first, but now that I'm used to it I get pissed at having to find the right click button when I use another laptop, because I have to move my whole hand to place my thumb above the right button (which is sometimes smaller than the left so more awkward to reach), rather than just dropping down my middle finger then doing a normal click. For something designed for more than 2 buttons this system wouldn't work that well though, obviously. You'd have to move to using 3 finger clicks and maybe even 4 finger clicks, which could get confusing or simply inconvenient, especially if you don't have 5 fingers
If you put down 2 fingers on the pad and then move them around then it allows you to scroll - not just up and down either, it also does left and right
Obviously a mouse is still preferable for some tasks, but I just thought I'd point out how great Apple's trackpads are because of the multitouch thing. I hope more manufacturers copy (or license?
Re:Firefox is starting to give me the shits (Score:3, Informative)
Firefox 3 added a new Plugins tab to the Add-Ons dialog. If it's not present for you, I'd suggest starting with a new profile; your old FF2 themes or extensions may be keeping it from showing for some reason...
Re:Old Look? (Score:3, Informative)
Oh. Wait. It's at least as good as the 3 button plus scroll wheel Logitech mouse I have on my Linux box. I can use the middle button for new tabs on both computers.
Re:But can it... (Score:3, Informative)
* View > Toolbars > Customise
* Drag the "Open new window" icon to your toolbar
Now you can drag a tab or the current page's favicon into the button to open it in a new window. Also works for text URLs. It shares some limitations with the keyboard trick though, in that it leaves the tab open.
Re:Actual Release Notes (Score:1, Informative)
alpha - it's a mess, we know there are serious bugs, but at least it compiles
beta - it works, but there are some known bugs and probably more unknown ones, tell us what you think
rc - it working well, feature complete, very few bugs, please help find the remaining bugs
release - we think this is solid, it's safe to use
Re:Actual Release Notes (Score:3, Informative)
alpha - Doesn't have all the features the final version is expected to have.
beta - Feature complite but has bugs which must be fixed before release version.
release candidate - If nothing serious is found, this will be the same as final release
Home page has RC link... (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Actual Release Notes (Score:1, Informative)
Nightlies compile but don't necessarily work in a useful way, even just for general testing.
Alphas are working but not complete and have known show-stopper bugs.
Betas are working and feature complete, but have known bugs which are not acceptable in a release product.
Release candidates are working, feature complete and have no known show-stopper bugs. If none are found in further testing, the release candidate turns into a release: A tried and tested release candidate.
These days the distinction is coupled to the development and testing processes rather than the result of these processes:
Nightlies are rapidly changing with new feature additions and major changes. Testing mostly by developers.
Alphas are still changing a lot and features are still added, but testing is officially expanded to dedicated testers and/or adventurous users.
Betas are the result of closing the door to major changes. Only corrections and minor feature additions are allowed. Testing expands to include the target audience.
Release candidates are mostly done. Normal users are encouraged to test the release candidate to find remaining interoperability bugs "in the wild". Depending on the severity of these bugs, they are documented and the candidate turns into a release or the bugs are fixed and another candidate is produced.
The main difference is that now release candidates are not expected to be release-worthy from the get-go. There is also another nomenclature in which "beta" means "this is our final product, but because we rushed it and couldn't wait to start cashing in, we have to cover our asses and slap the beta tag on it. If that makes you feel special, because you are one of the first few hundred thousand people who get to test our software, even better for us."